Personally delivered to you by Steve Lindhorst, author of
"Selling on 'the River' and "The Niche Book"
Well, it's that time again, 100+ degree days here on California's central coast, tomatoes are doing good, and my new kitten "Tex" is doing great. It's easy to get caught up in summer activities, but the big selling season begins in less than 60 days. It's time to get prepared, gather items to sell, and get a solid game plan. It'll be here before we know it! On to the newsletter...
In This Issue
- Why do people buy things?
- How can Doba work for you?
- Two new Amazon features - Charge When Ship & Concessions
- I told you so...eBay Live! is Dead
1. Why do people buy things?
You want to sell things. You want people to buy things. So why do people buy what you sell? I recently read an article over at Duct Tape Marketing that made a lot of sense. Five reasons why people buy things. In fact I liked the five things so much that I wrote them on my white board and I look at them every day. It doesn't matter if you are trying to sell a book, or an airplane at least one of these points will come into play.
Here they are quoted from the Duct Tape Marketing site:
People Buy Things That:
- Make them more money
- Save them time
- Allow them to avoid the frustration of doing stuff they don't like
- Help them avoid losing money - now or in the future
- Help them feel better about themselves
No matter what you sell, if you check the list before you approach potential buyers, you'll probably write a better description, or make a better pitch. Figure out why a person would buy what you're selling, then tailor your message to show how your product or service will meet that need.
I've sold posters for years. Who really needs a poster? Almost no one. And yet I've sold new posters for over $200. They weren't even framed. Why? Probably because of point #5. It makes them feel better in some way. Why do we pay out money for ebooks? For me at least, it's because of all five points.
As a seller, if you or I try to push a product without thinking of the five points above, we come across as hucksters, just out to make a buck. And that would be an accurate impression. So whatever you're selling, make sure you consider your potential customer's needs first. Make sure you can meet their needs with one of the five points. Then develop your messaage around how you're going to do that for them.
-
2. How can Doba work for you?
Several years ago at eBay Live! in San Jose, I moderated a presentation on product sourcing that included Lisa Suttora of What Do I Sell?, Rob Cowie of Worldwide Brands, and Jeremy Hanks, founder of Doba. I am very grateful for that assignment, since I got three good friendships out of it that continue to this day.
After that event I began working with Doba's education department as an outside consultant. Doba provides a place where suppliers can list their product inventory, and you can find items to sell. These different suppliers will drop ship products right to your customers, so you never have to handle or ship products. If you're a retailer looking for products to sell you can find them on Doba.
I found the people that work at Doba to be very nice people. They really do try to help sellers succeed. I have personally sold products from Doba on eBay and I was very happy with the service the drop shippers offered, as well as the quality of the merchandise.
Pros and Cons
Their catalog has over a million products from 203 drop ship suppliers. That is nice, but it can be tough to find products that you can actually make a profit on. There is competition from other Doba members, especially on eBay. So what are the upsides?
Doba currently steers their members toward eBay instead of Amazon. So if you're selling on Amazon, you might find a bit less competition from fellow Doba members. I have always found their suppliers quick shippers. So for a drop shipping source, Doba might be worth a try for you.
Another "pro" in my book - and certainly a reason to consider Doba's free trial - is you can buy things for yourself as a Doba member at a very nice discount. I recently needed a wall-mount for my flat screen TV. They are a bit pricey in stores, so I looked on Doba and found one for less than half the price of a similar model at Best Buy.
Doba's 7-Day Free Trial
I hate signing up for trial memberships. I always forget to cancel and get charged at least once before I remember. So I'm going to give you a couple of tips that helped me to fix that problem.
First of all, I am recommending you sign up for a Doba Free Trial.
Second - here are the tips:
- Use your "BACN" email address - so you can check it when you want, but advertisements won't clog up your main inbox.
- If you get started filling out the form, and start to leave, Doba will offer you a 14-day Free Trial instead of the original seven days.
- Set a reminder to cancel the membership before the trial ends. You can use Google Calendar, or your own calendar to remind you. During sign-up you will be asked for a credit card number. If you cancel before the trial is up, you will not be charged.
That's assuming you don't want to keep the membership, which you may.
Although it can be tough to find products to sell profitably, Doba makes a good supplement to your product line. And occasionally, as with any other place, you can sometimes find some great niche products and make a bunch of money.
-
3. Two new Amazon features - Charge When Ship & Concessions
Amazon has recently released two new features that will affect sellers. The first is called Charge When Ship and is going to be manditory for sellers starting this summer. The second change affects how sellers will issue refunds, and adds a new aspect to refunds called Concessions.
Charge When Ship changes the process by which sellers get paid, and adds a step in the fulfillment process. In this new process, the seller will ship the item, and then go to their Amazon Manage Orders page to confirm that the item shipped. Once shipment is confirmed, the customer's card will be charged.
If your order is not confirmed as shipped within two business days, both seller and buyer will receive a "late shipment" email notification. If it is still not shipped and confirmed within 30 days, the order will be canceled by Amazon.
What happens if the customer's payment doesn't go through? or an order is cancelled? Amazon says, "As long as you confirm that the order was properly shipped, you will be paid." When you confirm shipment, you have the option of adding a tracking number.
Why is Amazon doing this? As a seller, it helps me see at a glance which orders have shipped, which is nice. Also, in my opinion, it's an effort to make the buyer's experience more uniform between 3rd party sellers and Amazon itself. Besides that I think it will let Amazon see who violates the "tw0-day shipping" rule.
One benefit to this new step is automatic communication with your buyers. They'll get notification that their package is on the way along with a tracking number if you provide it. Yes, it's an extra step, but for small sellers, it's not a big deal.
Concessions, which are voluntary, are amounts that can be paid by the seller to a buyer other than as a refund of the order amount. An example would be when you want to reimburse a buyer for return shipping costs, or even if you want to send a partial refund as a gesture of goodwill to settle a dispute.
Overall, Amazon is heading in a good direction with the Manage Orders page. There is a definite need to improve the dashboard for sellers to help track orders and allow more freedom in communicating with customers.
More information:
-
4. I told you so...eBay Live! is dead...
Yesterday eBay made it official. eBay Live! 2010 is cancelled. I predicted that over a year ago. They are replacing the once fun event with more localized meet-ups called: eBay: On Location.
President of eBay Marketplaces, Lorrie Norrington said in her announcement:
"Many sellers and buyers have told us that although eBay Live! is a terrific way to learn and network, they would enjoy more local events that don't require costly travel. eBay: On Location will provide just that - an easier way for you to come together, learn about eBay from experts and each other, network and, of course, celebrate. Our goal is to provide eBay: On Location within a day's drive for as many sellers and buyers as possible. eBay: On Location will deliver a compelling experience that will be easier on your wallet and require less valuable time away from your eBay business."
Based on the local events eBay has held over the past year, only the very biggest sellers in the area invited to a conference where everyone pats each other on the back and new backroom deals are made with large sellers. Sounds like a blast!
I'm still selling a little on eBay, but I advise everyone to spread out. Get on Amazon, and get your own websites up and running.
Does anyone want to buy a used eBay Live! Staff shirt?
Thanks for reading!
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Some people like me who are not US residents can’t sell on amazon. So we are stuck with ebay which allows guys like us to sell. Any other place to sell profitably with less competiton besides ebay for us guys who are not US residents?
I really hate to hear that ebay LIVE is dead. That’s how I met YOU and learned what a great and brilliant guy you are, not only with regards to e-commerce but overall! It was a great excuse to travel somewhere, learn a little information, meet some great people, and watch some total crazies! Thanks for always sharing your insights and I hope we will work together in the future!
I seems that eBay is catering to the larger retailer leaving many of the smaller guys in the dust. The two day shipping requirement is something that many retailers who use drop shippers for fulfillment cannot guarantee since many drop shippers require 48 hours or longer to fill orders. The primary way to assure 48 hours shipping is to inventory the products which is a significant cost for smaller retailers.
So eBay is yielding yet more space to branded national retailers whose mark ups and prices are generally higher and leaving less space for niche players who can negotiate for specials or find bargains but who cannot assure 48 hour delivery.
If we could combine Craig Ferguson, eBay Live!, and crashing a wedding reception for hors d’oeuvre we would have a winner!
I know where you can have that shirt nicely framed…
Enjoyed being with you in Las Vegas, in March at ASD, Steve. Your newsletters and presentations are always informative, helpful, and much appreciated!
Thanks Ed. I’ll be there again the second weekend of August. Great time for Vegas huh? My buddy Skip will be speaking as well, it should be a great show.
Steve;
Have you ever heard of this? I just had this problem with Amazon. I shipped an order which the customer received in 3 weeks. They filed an A-z guarantee claim and Amazon refunded the customer. The customer claimed we never emailed them which we did. Also Amazon sent us a questionaire asking about the order and the shipment. We filled it in the same day with the tracking number and 2 days later they take the money from our account. We keep going back and forth with them on emails and we recently got one that said since the order was received later than expected the customer can keep the merchandise and we don’t get paid. Unfortunately all we get are the same senseless emails from them. How can a customer receive the merchandise and we don’t get paid. The order was for $180.00. What happens if it was $2000.00? Its a scary situation. Can you give me any advice.
Regards,
Bill Curtis
JBK Trading
Hate to see the event cancelled. I really learned so much and the networking was fantastic!!! Based on the continuing changes, I have taken your advice and expanded onto Amazon as well. I did this as a result of your book Selling on The River!! Thanks for all of your insight!!
Karen
Steve, I love the material that I recieve from you and find the information very helpful. I have taken your advice regarding diversification. I have been selling on EBay, will be ready for Amazon, thanks to you, very soon. I am also looking forward to opening my first independent store. Right now I am looking hard at the free store being offered by Vendio as a part of their auction manage services. I would appreciate your comments about my plans.Keep up the great work. Wally
Steve, love the material you provide on a monthly basis. Can you provide some examples of items you’ve sold using Doba? I was a member for a year with no success. I would scour that site for hours and not find anything viable for eBay. What’s the trick? Thanks
Echoing what Ishtiaq said …
I have a real gripe with Amazon not allowing sellers globally to participaite. To quote one of their UK support staff, they said that they are perfectly happy for buyers worldwide to use the site, but they only want sellers resident in their assigned territories.
I’m seeing a similar form of protectionism building within eBay (and have done so for the last couple of years) through their various feedback and shipping policies, and in North America through the “PayPal-only by Proxy” medium of the paperless payments policy (ALL the alternatives on dot com are only available to sellers inside the US borders).
Unfortunately for both companies, as a scholar of history from a country with a rich and long history of colonialism, now expatriated in Asia, I identify the restrictive policies for overseas sellers as being both ecommerce protectionism and ecommerce colonialism – they want to plunder the finances outside their core regions, without allowing any return flow (i.e. 2-way trade) back to those regions.
It is exactly that type of approach that led to the formation of organisations such as the Fair Trade Organisation, various UN bodies, and several divisions within the World Bank and the IMF. Currently those organisations do not seem to have Amazon and eBay on their radars, hopefully that will change soon and eBay will again become a unified global marketplace with a level playing field internationally (as per 4-5 years ago), and Amazon will be forced into the same position.
I spent all last week working on my eBay listings. I spent yesterday evening tweaking the appearance of my website. Last night while I slept, following the revised visuals, my website sold more in those eight hours than I’ve sold on eBay since Easter this year.
eBay is either a dead channel, or so skewed against the non-favourites, and Amazon is a no-go zone for those outside of their core countries.
Final thought – in China alone, over 50,000,000 ecommerce websites added per year over the last 5 years – those who worry about “cheap Chinese imports” flooding eBay and Amazon should take the blinkers off. The Chinese, the longest established trading nation on the planet, really don’t like using eBay … and there’s wisdom in that stance – 5,000 years worth of accrued wisdom.
Gaz
Thanks Gaz. That is some great insight. I really appreciate your experience with your own website, as well as the comment on the Chinese people’s experience with business. That’s a really good point. I hope readers will try hard to get their own ecommerce sites.
The best bet for non-US eBayers wishing to diversify is to get your own website and use eBay like the big companies do–for customer acquisition.
For SEO purposes, you can also check out the free marketplaces. Blujay is for the UK. Oztion isn’t completely free, but is growing in popularity for Australians. Bonanzle is a growing lower fee alternative in the US that is open to international sellers.
Bottom line–do not count on eBay for 100% of your sales. Ever.
I found the article on why people buy very helpful as I am developing sales letters right now for my candle business. Thanks for the no nonsense, easy to use content.