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January 31, 2005
Illegal Steroids Sell On Ebay
It's hard for me to imagine that people are dumb enough to risk their health, liberty – and even lives – taking illegal steroids simply for the sake of appearance. But it's true and these foolhardy folks have been finding them on eBay where suppliers sell them under various pretenses.
According to MSNBC, who did a three month eBay study, a few of the auctions occurred in the open but many used the simple ruse of listing the drugs as “books about steroids” to avoid detection by the site’s security team.
A recent eBay auction offers a "book/pamphlet on Dbol," a common dodge used by sellers of illegal steroids on the Internet auction site.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6809149
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:46 PM | TrackBack
January 27, 2005
Company Logos & Mind Control Stories
Mind control stories. Just the phrase has a sort of ominous sound to it, doesn't it? But unless we live alone on a remote island or mountain, we're all subject to control, or at least influence, of our mind in some ways. Plato noticed this 2400 years ago when he compared us to prisoners chained in a cave, who saw only what was reflected on the cave wall in front of them. When one intrepid soul escaped into the sunlight and returned to report on the freedom available to all, he was scorned by the other prisoners who refused to see past their conditioning.
Comedians like George Carlin and Gallagher are funny precisely because they can see the absurdities that surround us. Browsing through eBay recently, the foolishness of paying extra money to have company logos on our belongings struck me as being particularly odd.
Mom, just had a baby? Check her out of the hospital in her very own pink sleeper and cap set with an eBay logo on it, while Dad drags his insurance card out of his $20 PayPal debit card holder (made of 100% genuine smooth grain leather).
To celebrate the birth of your new daughter, get your Ralph Lauren Polo shirt for only $75 – you can add your own monogram, but you still get the little polo rider - and for a mere $128, you, too, have the privilege of advertising Guess jeans . You can even have Calvin Klein's name on yourundies, at $28.50 each. Dad can tell what time it is with his Tommy Hilfiger watch and when checking out of the hospital, don't forget your $298 Land's End luggage
What brilliant marketing this is: we pay to advertise somebody else's products for them. How amazing that consumers buy into this. Why do people pay premiums for this 'privilege'?
* Do we perceive that the status of a famous name will rub off on us and somehow make us more important?
* Are we so enslaved to fashion or style that we follow the herd because it's safe, because a product is “in”?
* Or do we just not stop and think about what we're doing? Are we truly like the fish who asked a fellow fish, “What is this water stuff that I hear about all the time?”
* Or some other reason entirely?
Bottom line: shouldn't merchants pay US to advertise their products? Think about it.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:06 PM | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
Buying Wholesale Requires Knowledge & Common Sense
Buying wholesale is not only possible, but highly desirable. However, wholesale bargains aren't lying on the street corner for online sellers to scoop up. For instance, a recent email from an ezine reader referred to the eBay sale of a supposedly 'top secret' source that will sell iPods for $80. My reader asked if he should believe the listing.
The problem is that we all want to believe in a list like this – especially since it only cost $2.99! Upon checking the auction he mentioned, I think we can be certain this is nothing but another pathetic scheme for duping unsuspecting eBay buyers. Decide for yourself:
http://wholesale-dropship-info.com/wholesale/wholesalers-for-ebay-sellers.shtml
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 12:48 PM | TrackBack
January 23, 2005
Wholesale Dropship Info.com Powered By Affiliate Feeds
Sometimes you can just see what's going to be the next “big thing” in an industry. And in the affiliate industry, and Internet marketing in general, it's clearly going to be feeds.
What, exactly, is a feed? The simplest definition is that it's a way of distributing and aggregating Web content. It's syndication – like reading Dear Abby or your favorite cartoon – except that it's 21st century-tech style. Meaning it does cool things like updating itself – without any effort on your part. This blog entry you are reading right now is a feed. Whenever a blog author writes a new entry, anyone subscribing to that feed will receive a new entry without having to do anything. To us non-techs, it's the equivalent of magic.
So why should affiliates care? Well, there are lots of reasons, and we'll be talking about this a lot in the future, but here are two biggies:
1. The search engines LOVE 'em! So if you have a site with automatically updated content, Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest are almost certain to be sniffing around on a frequent basis. Translation:
2. Using product feeds is a wonderful way for affiliates to sell! To illustrate this, gather round the campfire while I share a personal story ...
In the holiday season of 2003, I made $1,000+ per week selling Bratz dolls via AdWords. It was simple and clean – all I did was buy some keywords and direct buyers straight to my affiliate companies. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to my AdWords panel every day and suddenly I realized that my revenues had stopped cold. I discovered that the dolls were so hot that my suppliers were sold out. Unfortunately they hadn't bothered to notify me and I ended up paying for days of clicks that were totally pointless! Boo!
That won't happen with an affiliate feed, if your supplier updates as it should. Why? Because your feed will auto-update itself!
* Your supplier is out of stock?
* They are running a special?
* Offering free shipping?
* Two for the price of one?
Your customers will know it and you won't have to DO anything? It surely beats the tedious and incredibly time-consuming chore of listing product, pictures, prices, links, etc., one at a time.
See the newest way to build an affiliate site at:
http://wholesale-dropship-info.com
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:53 PM | TrackBack
January 20, 2005
eBay Fees To Rise In February
eBay has announced a fee increase at about the same time as they report revenues up 44% over the previous year. And how will these fee changes affect your business? Naturally, there is no one-size-fits all answer for that question. It depends on a multitude of factors and only sellers can answer that question by taking a look at their own numbers.
One thing is for sure – the place to start is by taking a look at the new fees that will go into effect on February 18, 2005.
http://auction-genius-course.com/auction/ebay-fees.shtml
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 2:04 PM | TrackBack
January 19, 2005
eBay Selling Tools Invaluable For Successful eBay Sellers
Successful eBay sellers – and online marketers in general – know that the old cliché that 'time is money' is right on. I often hear wanna-be super sellers griping loudly and often about how much it costs to get their business rolling. Actually, you can do most things the long, involved - and free - way. For instance, I can spend hours searching through dozens or hundreds of eBay listings to figure out variables. It doesn't cost me a dime – it only costs me a lot of hours. Or, I can pay a one-time fee of a couple of hundred dollars and let a piece of software handle it for me in 10 minutes.
Skip McGrath, long time auction seller, has written an excellent article on this subject, one that every seller would be advised to read.
- - -
I see eBay sellers confusing “saving” money with “making” money all the time.
For centuries man has looked for a way to buy more time. We all know you literally can’t “buy” time with money, but you can “buy” time with time-saving and time-management techniques. Over my lifetime, I have seen the exponential growth of automation technology as the biggest time-saving boon to mankind.
Sometimes it’s an investment in technology that can buy you time and sometimes it’s just doing little things well. I was working on my new book last week and Karen was sitting at the next computer processing orders. I heard Karen wail and looked over as she was trying to tear her hair out. One of our eBay buyers had bought a Starbucks mug from us at auction and decided to pay by check. Karen opened the envelope, found the money-order and a note that said: “I am really excited to get my Starbucks mug.” There was nothing else in the note. No name, no address, no eBay username and no description of the mug. (We had sold over 20 different mugs at auction in the previous week or so.) So Karen spent the next hour doing detective work trying to narrow down which auction this was and who the buyer was. She asked me: “Don’t you have anything in your auction description or end of auction emails instructing people who send checks or money orders to include some information about themselves, an auction number or anything?” I looked at her sheepishly and admitted I didn’t. I have been selling on eBay for six years and this had happened numerous times and this simple step had still eluded me.
So sometimes it’s a simple thing that can save you time. That brings us to the thought of investing in your business. Years ago in the corporate world I was a sales director for a large company. We hired commissioned sales people as independent contractors. I had a fantastic salesman named Howard working for me. He had a very high closing ratio but his sales total at the end of the month was about the same as some of the mediocre people on my team. I tried to figure out why this was. I watched Howard for a while and then I spent some time tracking his activity. It turned out that Howard was the type of individual who would step over a $20 bill lying on the street to pick up a $1 bill lying just beyond it. (Stay with me I will get back to eBay in a minute).
Every salesman had to spend time prospecting and setting up appointments and then doing the paperwork related to their sales. Howard was spending almost 20 hours a week doing this and only 20 hours in front of customers. Howard made about $200 on each sale and he closed about 8 sales a week. ($1,600 week) If he was only in front of customers 20 hours a week, that worked out to an income of $80 an hour when he was selling. I asked Howard why he didn’t hire someone to set his appointments and do his paperwork so he could spend more time in front of customers. His answer was: Gee Boss, that’s expensive. I would have to pay $10 an hour to find someone good.
I often get emails from people complaining how expensive some software or auction management service is. These folks are like Howard, they are stepping over a $20 bill to pick up a $1 bill. Yes, using a service such as Vendio, Andale, MarketWorks or any of the others incurs a monthly cost. DSL is more expensive than dial-up. An integrated postage scale and label printer is expensive to buy and you have to buy the labels. Dumpster diving for free boxes is cheaper than buying them. What I am saying here is that all of these things cost money but can save you time.
OK – so how do I determine what to invest in and what is a waste of money. First make a list of “high-value” tasks. A high-value task is one that makes you money and takes advantage of your unique talents and is something you would not want to ask someone else to do. Some examples might be doing product research to find that next great product. Taking photos and writing auction descriptions, or answering questions from bidders. Now list your low-value tasks. These could include uploading photos to your web site, posting feedback, sending out payment and shipped-notice emails, hand-addressing shipping labels, packing your shipments, and standing in line at the post office.
Any time you spend doing high-value tasks is making you money. Time spent doing low-value tasks is time you could be spending doing high-value tasks that make you money. If you are launching 50 auctions a week and closing 35 of them successfully anything you can do to either launch more auctions or increase your closing ratio is a high-value task. If your low-value (administrative) tasks are sucking up your time that you could be spending to launch more, or better, auctions you need to find a way to reduce time spent that is not making you money. There are three ways to do this: Automation, standardization and hiring help.
Automation takes the form of using auction management software or a service such as Vendio to automate things such as setting up auction templates, scheduling launch times, calculating shipping, sending out payment and item-shipped emails, posting feedback and so on. It would also include using a system such as Endicia to integrate your scale, label printer and printing postage. There are many other forms of automation available to eBay sellers today. Just click on the seller services link on eBay Seller Central.
Standardization is anything you can do to instruct the customer how you handle your shipping and order processing. This is usually done in the part of your auction description where you lay out standard payment and shipping terms. Standardization can also include using fixed shipping costs, so you are not spending time calculating shipping and emailing that information back and forth to the customer.
Admittedly, hiring help can be problematic. Most people do not want a stranger working in their home. This is where you need to be a little creative. We set up a shipping station in our garage. We hire a local teenager who comes in every day after school and works in the garage packing our goods. She is still too young to drive so Karen takes the packages to the post office, but because we now use Endicia, she just drives up to the back door, rings the bell and hands the packages over. This was a real time-saver before Christmas when the post-office lines were really long.
One seller I know takes all his goods with the pre-printed postage labels to a neighbor’s house. She packages the goods and takes them to the post office. She is a stay-at-home mom and he pays her $7.00 an hour. Packing and the trip to the post office takes her between two and three hours a day so this costs the seller between $14 and $21 a day. But that two or three hours saved allows him to launch many more auctions than he could otherwise. These are examples of trading a low-value task for a high-value task. There is often a cost for doing this, but now you are picking up the $20 bill instead of stepping over it.
http://www.auction-sellers-resource.com/newsletters/jan
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 12:35 PM | TrackBack
January 14, 2005
Charity Auction: Frank Must Die
Charity auctions on eBay are subject to strict rules. Naturally, there are many unscrupulous people who have claimed to donate part or all of their winnings to charity, in order to move buyers to generosity, but had no intention whatsoever of following through on this promise. In an attempt to halt this abuse, eBay has required sellers to verify their charity through eBay channels and to follow some rather stringent rules. Unfortunately, sometimes really good causes are penalized, as with 9 year old David Dingman-Grover who has a cancer at the base of his skull.
In order to deal with his fear of this dread thing, David decided to name it Frankenstein. And to help pay his medical bills, his parents created a bumper sticker saying, “Frank Must Die” and began selling it on eBay. They say if somebody would pay $28,000 for a grilled cheese sandwich thought to bear the image of the Virgin Mary, somebody might pay big money to help their son.
Bidding rose to $6,000 before eBay kicked out their auction, citing numerous rule violations. Spokesman Hani Durzy said auctioneers are not allowed to advertise that money for their items will go toward a cause. The family amended the ad and had a new version up and running the same day.
David was diagnosed in May 2003 with a grapefruit-sized malignant tumor called a rhabdomyosarcoma. The size and location of the tumor - most are in the limbs - made it impossible for doctors to take out, according to his mother in her ad on eBay.
Now, David needs a highly specialized biopsy to determine whether the tumor is still cancerous or if it has been reduced to scar tissue, his mother and doctor said.
Because David's carotid artery runs through the tumor, the biopsy is extremely risky. One way to perform the biopsy would require doctors to actually remove David's face to get to the tumor.
The very thought set his mother off on a search for a less extreme biopsy method. She eventually discovered specialists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who can get to the tumor by going through David's nose.
"It's a very specialized thing within pediatric neurosurgery," said David's oncologist, Dr. Jay Greenberg. "There's only like five guys around the country comfortable doing this."
The family must pay 20 percent of the surgery bill, which also requires a $1,500 fee paid in advance, said Dingman-Grover, who does not yet know exactly how much the procedure will cost.
Insurance has covered most of the $1 million in treatment expenses, but the family still shells out about $200,000 a year to cover their share of the medical bills, she said.
The family's income took a hit when Dingman-Grover cut back her hours at work to stay home with David. The local church donated money and she began auctioning personal items on eBay to help supplement the funds.
In a sad postscript to David's auction, there are numerous eBay sellers capitalizing on the publicity created by this now-famous auction. Going to eBay today and typing in the keywords “frank must die” reveals 27 items with these keywords in their listing titles. Reading over the auctions, most (all?) of them have nothing whatsoever to do with this brave little boy and his fight for life. Shame on them!
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:38 PM | TrackBack
January 13, 2005
Jobs For Teenagers Easier With Classic Marketing
Copywriter Craig Garber has described the job search of his teenage son, Nick. It seems that 14 year old Nick wanted to work at the local Publix for his first part time job. The problem was that 297 other kids had applied. When asked by dad how he was going to distinguish himself from the herd, he answered, “I'll send 'em a sales letter, Dad!”
And wow, did 14 year old Nick send a doozie of a sales letter! He mailed it on Monday by Priority mail. The result: Wednesday afternoon the store manager called and offered him a job! So impressed was he with Nick that he even created a position with the store because the original job called for evening work which Nick wasn't old enough to do.
No one who wants to sell anything at all on the Net should miss this marvelous letter:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/howtouseasimplesalesletter.htm
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:26 PM | TrackBack
January 11, 2005
eBay Auction Site Safer With Bonded Sellers
It's not exactly a hot new flash that the eBay auction site has its share of dishonest sellers – and bidders. It's easier for buyers to protect themselves simply because they don't send the goodies until they've received payment. And yes, there are stolen credit cards and other kinds of fraud that are perpetrated on sellers. But prudent merchants are safer than the poor buyer who might be left hanging out there, “twisting in the wind”.
What can seller do to overcome the suspicion of cynical and untrusting buyers? One way is to become a bonded seller. One of the most popular bonding agencies online is BuySafe, who recently reached an agreement with Liberty Mutual to provide funding for their program.
eBay sellers can apply for a surety bond and can use the BuySafe seal on their listings. In return, they pay 1% of each purchase to the bonding company. The buyer is protected up to $25,000.
Dennis Perler, president of Liberty Mutual Surety, claimed “This is an inexpensive
way to experience worry-free shopping online."
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:38 PM | TrackBack
January 7, 2005
The Fastest-Growing Form of eBay Fraud
eBay email fraud is a huge problem for the giant site (as it is for all large sites that involve money, honey). In an attempt to fight back, eBay has introduced a private mail service.
The new service is My Messages, a free, personalized in-box for eBay customers that contains communications only sent from eBay. That way, members can be sure to avoid scams designed to lure people to a fake eBay Web site in order to capture credit card numbers or other personal information.
Such scams are a growing headache for companies online, but eBay and PayPal may be among the most targeted because of eBay's brand name and massive marketplace. Financial institutions and online retailers are also the targets of e-mail scammers.
Personally, I object to the terms used for these scam emails: Spoofing. Phishing.
The dictionary defines a “spoof” as:
* Nonsense; tomfoolery
* A gentle satirical imitation; a light parody
Doesn't fit the bill for me.
As for “ phishing” - I don't have a clue where that word came from. Certainly not a dictionary.
Let's call it what it is ...
* Theft
* Crime
* Defrauding
* Robbery
* Larceny
* Fraud
... and quit using nice little euphemisms that demean the viciousness and nastiness of email scams.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group has compiled a list that will enable any Net user to see if he's been targeted for a scam. Not that it's too hard to figure out. After all, I only get about 10-20 PER DAY.
http://news.com.com/eBay+users+targeted+by+phishing+scam/2030-7349_3-5402058.html?tag=nl
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:40 PM | TrackBack
January 5, 2005
Outgrowing A Home Business With An eBay Store
Millions of Netpreneurs dream of a home business that is so successful that it outgrows the spare bedroom. One way to make that happen is with an eBay store. The Chens are eBay watch sellers who have the nice problem of ... too much business. That is, a home business than can't remain at home any longer.
Lane Chen sounds glad with the prospect of moving his family business, Big Apple Watch Store out of the house and into a larger space. "We've reached the point where our home is too small and we have to rent a professional office and hire full time employees. We now have three full time and two part time people here. We started small, making about $500 per month. Now we're Platinum PowerSellers!"
"We started about two and a half years ago," Lane relates. "At the end of 2002, my wife Cindy quitted her 9 to 5 job as a supervisor at an import company in Manhattan. She has an accounting background and owned a retail business before. She was looking to start a online business, which doesn't have a strict schedule and long hours of standing, like most of the traditional retail business. eBay is a perfect fit. We have done a lot of research and tried selling a number of things on eBay to make a profit before settling down on selling name brand watches."
Like many eBay businesses, Big Apple Watch Store
http://stores.ebay.com/Big-Apple-Watch-Store
started small, with a couple thousand dollars, in Lane's words. With Lane's computer savvy and his wife working from home on eBay full time, the business took off. "We were able to grow very quickly. We started using Sellers Assistant Pro and that helped us carry more inventory. I set up small network at home and started to help her on the side, answering e-mails and doing some of the packing while I was holding a full time job as a computer network engineer. About a year and half later, I joined her doing eBay full time."
If you want to see a great example of eBay Store customization, look at the Chens' store. With custom categories named after the brands they sell, they can be found during Internet searches for these brands from Google, Yahoo, and many other search engines, besides eBay's own internal search functions. They also have custom pages built specifically for gift shoppers. "The Store is very important," confirms Lane. "Not only can we list items to sell, but also we can have a central point for customers to see everything that we have. Also, we link from our web site to the eBay Store. Basically the Store allows the customer to come back and find us easily."
"In terms of the tools, we started with SA Pro and it has worked out great in the past. We’re reaching the capacity of the software, and we're anticipating the software upgrade. eBay asked us for input about what we'd like to see in the new software, and I provided some of my thoughts." Lane isn't the only one excited about the upcoming upgrades to eBay's listing software. Watch out for more news in the coming months on eBay and in the PowerUp e-mail newsletter .
In general, Lane uses Gallery photos on all listings and will occasionally use Featured Plus! to promote special items and draw greater traffic. In terms of listing format, "we combine auction-only and Buy It Now listings. We also use reserves for high-end items. To promote Buy It now, we often offer free shipping for BIN customers. We encourage BIN to complete transactions more quickly."
Listing quality makes a difference in Lane's estimation. "Try to give it a professional look," he advises. "The detail of the description and how an item is presented is very important."
This doesn't require a lot of extra effort or expense, only simplicity and directness of approach: "We do our own pictures, and we use a relatively inexpensive camera."
"We also offer a return on any item. That's contributed to our success. We put ourselves in the buyer's shoes: buyers feel much more comfortable with a return. And we actually don't get that many returns. The benefit of a return policy is much greater than the cost.
"eBay is a very competitive and ever-changing market place. An eBay seller cannot afford to stand still; he/she must have a good feel of the marketplace and keep changing or expanding the products and selling tactics to adapt and compete. He/She also needs to constantly keep a close eye on the bottom line of the business as what sells, what doesn't sell, how to expand, and how to improve. Because Seller's Assistant Pro uses an open database, we are able to create all kinds of custom reports to keep track of our sales, inventory, cost by category, profit by category, sell-through rate, and others. It allowed us to see how the business performs at any given time and if any change or adjustment is needed."
Our belief is that if we have a decent product and combine it with good customer service, we can make a decent profit."
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 11:00 AM | TrackBack
January 4, 2005
Internet Traffic Up 25.6% During The Holiday Season
Recently, I've read three different doomsday articles that suggest the Internet is 'dead'. It's amazing that people can read and write such hogwash! I certainly knew that was nonsense, so it's nice to get confirmation from CNN Money who reports that Internet holiday traffic was up 25.6% from 2003.
The data comes on the heels of news that online retailer Amazon.com had record-breaking sales, and amid expectations that the whole sector had a healthy holiday season.
Visits to large Web retailers peaked over a range of days. In particular, traffic to Dell.com, eBay.com and Amazon.com spiked Nov. 10, Dec. 9 and Dec. 11.
On the other hand, visits to the sites of major brick-and-mortar retailers such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target tended to peak Nov. 25 - or Thanksgiving Day - as consumers used the Web to research items before heading to stores for the traditionally heavy "Black Friday" shopping day.
Gee, those people are smart. I was one of those fools who went into actual physical stores on the day after Thanksgiving! 
