The first thing I think you should do. Is get a market research program.

What is a market research program it will give you the ability to find pricing on items on eBay. What I mean you can find what the average sales price is on a particular item on eBay. This is a huge advantage, because now you know, if you should buy a certain product to sell. Second you'll see if their is a market for your particular item. It just makes it a little easier to decided weather or not to see a particular product.

This is all about a powerful tool, I've grown to use day in and day out. If you sell items on the Internet, and on eBay. This is a must read article for you. Now I'm not going to promise you a get rich fast scheme, I'm telling you about a tool. That will help making you successful, and keeping your business around for the long run.

What I speak of is Called Hammertap, Which is an online market research tool. That will enable you to get higher profits on eBay Auctions. You will be able to see which category to list you product in, and which categories that will make you the most money. You will be able to find the best keywords for your products. These are keywords, that are most popular for your item, and which keywords get the best results or the most $$. You can even use Hammertap as a guide, to find hot categories. The possibilities are endless, so give it a free try, and watch your profits soar.



An example of Usage.

An Auction I want to list is an Teac 7010 ( Reel to Reel)

• The program tells me that 6 have sold in the last 30 days
• The average sales price is $221
• The Best Day to end the Auction is Sunday ( the avg sales price on Sunday is $424)
• The best hour to end my auction is 1900 Pacific Time. ( Avg price is for this ending time is $500)

So, know I have a goal to shoot for of $221, then I can actually go and look at the sold auctions. This way I can look at see what other sellers are doing, and see if I can take anything to help my auction succeed. Next I know the best ending time and day, so now it's up to me to get people to find my auction.

My Title will look like this

Vintage TEAC 7010 Reel to Reel TAPE RECORDER

The words I choose have a Avg sales price between $221 and $342 so those look like good keywords to use. Meaning those keywords will drive the good traffic my way. The program also shows me, which keywords to avoid for ex ( the word deck had a sales price of $87) so we don't want deck in our title.

What I have told you is only scratching the surface on what hammertap can do for you. Give it a try for free, if you don't like it cancel anytime. I believe hammertap cost around $20 a month. They even give you free webinars, to help you get started.

A main problem with e-commerce sellers can be were to find things to sell.

There are lots of websites out there that want to charge you for a little bit of information.
I will give you FREE information, on Real Companies with real products.
We will also discuss different ways to find products.

1. First you must decide what you want to sell, I always recommend selling something that you are passionate about. Sell items that you would actually go out and buy yourself. The reason you sell things is to make money, but selling things you enjoy will make it fun.

2. Write Letters to businesses, I know this sounds a little old fashion, but you could hit the jackpot. Medical Equipment for example, that's big money, hospitals are always, upgrading their equipment. You can sell medical equipment to 3rd world countries for example, they could use it. Or maybe to new doctors offices starting out. Remember this is another form of direct advertising, and the more someone reads a letter, the more they will remember it.

3. Storage Units, here is a little unknown fact. When someone fails to pay their month storage unit bill, the storage unit has the right to auction all the contents in one auction. So check your local papers, for times and places, by law storage unit companies must place an add notifying the public of such an auction. IF you are to go to one of these auctions, you are not allowed to look through the contents, you are only allowed to bid on all the items as a whole.

4. eBay, most people only go on eBay to buy stuff for themselves or maybe for a gift. You can actually find real great products to sell as well. First look for auctions that go off at the middle of the night for example. Here is a big one look for misspellings on eBay, that link is very cool and you'll be amazed at what you can find.

5. Look for closeout stores, going out of business stores. You can always, always find really great deals at going out of business sales. Not to mention Garage Sales, Rummage Sales, Flea Markets, all represent great opportunities to find a hidden gem. Keep in mind always look for what sells, avoid buying junk.

6. Trade Show Finder are really great places to find new products, not to mention a place were you can get great deals. You can get good deals, mainly because you are face to face with someone, and use a little negotiating skills. Secondly you can find products that you can be very unique, and you can work out a deal to be the sole retailer of a certain product.

7. If you are looking for wholesale products, go straight to the source. If you want to sell infinity speakers (ex.) call infinity and see what it takes to buy wholesale products through them. You can in most cases get a better price going to the source, rather than working with a middle man. Most wholesalers will drop ship as well.

Many of the top eBay sellers don't ever purchase, store, stock, deliver any merchandise at all. Instead, they use a method of delivery known as drop-shipping. The main benefits for the retailer of drop shipping are: no upfront inventory to purchase, no inventory storage, no shipping, and a positive cash flow cycle which occurs because the seller is paid when the purchase is made.

This is a method whereby the seller places an item for sale on eBay, at whatever price the seller chooses to charge for it. Once a buyer has paid for the item, the seller then pays the supplier who actually has the item in stock at their price, and the supplier ships the item to the buyer. The seller can keep everything that the buyer has paid over the seller's cost of the item as profit. This can be a very easy and effective method of running an eBay Business if you have a good, dependable drop-shipping dealer. If all things are running as they're supposed to, then the process should be a smooth one.

For example: A drop shipper sells you a Sony receiver for $100, you don't actually receive the receiver. They give you all the information to list the receiver. So you put the item up for auction on eBay, the drop shipper will also tell you how much you should charge for shipping. Seven days pass and the receiver sold for $145 on eBay. Once you have payment from your customer for the receiver you pay the drop shipper the $100, plus the shipping cost, and any fees. (some drop shippers charge a $1 fee per item or even more). The drop shippers then send the item to your customer for you, and generally will give you any tracking information you might need. You netted a $45 dollar profit minus any listing and selling fees.

It sounds easy, but what if the drop shipper runs out of stock on the receiver and you have no product for your customer. That situation is not good, and happens all to often. Solution never sell and item a drop shipper doesn't have 100 or more of! Remember this is your business, and your business ultimately will be the one who suffers. So you need to do your homework about a potential drop shipper, check the Better Business Bureau, post a blog asking questions about the company.

The good and Bad of Craigslist

Yes you can find lots of great items on craigslist, jobs, friends, goods for sale, business and so much more. Its a great spot to sell things as well. Craigslist has a powerful search engine, and chances are you can even find your add on google, shortly after you post something for sale.

Some really great Advantages of using Craigslist you may not Know:

1. I guess one of the best aspects of craigslist is the fact that its completely free. Well almost, I believe they charge $25 to promote as business now. To sell something is free, and you can include up to 4 pictures.


2. This is a great way to sell items, that are to heavy to ship around the united states. For Example( I sold a pair of 15 Peavey Speakers for about $150, just imagine how much it would actually ship those speakers across country...Maybe $70 via UPS. So your profit margin would be less if you actually had to charge for shipping


3. I'm a registered eBay Trading Assistant, and I get phone calls all the time to sell, dressers, beds, tables, all really big and heavy items. Craigslist is a perfect solution to sell these items, and make a profit at the same time. Generally if I'm to sell something on Craigslist for someone, I would sell it from their home, meaning I would go and take pictures at their residence and Schedule a time to meet them at their residence to pick up the item when it sells. This is also great to make some extra cash for delivery. If your selling a large table, and a customer wants it a few miles away, chance are they'll jump at the chance to have it delivered. I generally charge in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 for delivery. That will cover the cost of gas, and put a few extra dollars in your pocket.


4. You can generally find products on craigslist were you can resell for more money. Craigslist offers, a Wanted Section you can post an add for a particular item your looking for. Chances are pretty good, that someone will contact you. For example( I post adds for Vintage electronics, and you won't believe the e-mails and phone calls I get. Most people are just happy to get rid of items for $25 or so. You can even browse whats for sale, and generally find items, that people just want to get rid of fast, and for cheap. This is another area where you can make a few extra dollars a week from.


5. One area where I have learned is to sell items at a reasonable price. If you price your item to high, you won't get much action. This may make sense, but once you find a reasonable price you'll get lots of e-mails. So always keep that in mind, when you are trying to sell something. The best part about selling something "besides being free, is most people will drive to your house or office, to buy the item. " So that is a win win situation

Like I mentioned above, about the powerful search engine, craigslist offers. I always put a link to my website, on any thing, I list or sell. This in the long run will help your search engine ranking. In order to put you URL on Craigslist your must Type it like this:

http://www.yourwebsitehere.com

You have to put in the http, in order for the link to work. You can also you basic html on craigslist, like for bold, for large head line, Insert a Break in a Paragraph, etc. I always put a "target="_blank" tag some my website opens in a new screen, that way your not taking away from what got the person there in the first place. To put the "target="_blank" tag in the page, you must first publish the page, then go back and edit the page, and then proceed to place the tag where you normally would for ex.

< href="htt://www.yoursite.com" target="_blank"> Your Site

you will need to place an "A before Href and / like I,

Here what it actually looks like My Site

I did mention there was some Bad, with Craigslist.

Fraud, make sure you only accept cash from people. Lots of people will want to send you money orders, bidpal payments etc. An easy way to avoid a lot of this is to print clearly I will accept cash only. You get alot of fake e-mails if you are sell a high priced item especially. Read my other blogs about detecting fraud.

People can be Flaky, Sometimes people will call and want to meet with you, then they never show up. Unfortunately this happens all to often. So never commit to holding on to something for someone, chances are you'll never see them. So just tell people, that the first person who stops by with money gets the item.

If you are to buy something from someone, always check and make sure what you are buying is legit. For electronics plug them in, accessories inspect them, get certificates of authenticity, receipts etc. Just be careful, and if you do meet people, make sure its a bright well light area, with traffic around. Unfortunately there are a lot of dishonest people in the world, so just be careful.

World Wide Brands is the largest collection of wholesale companies on the internet. They are a database, where you can find products from millions of companies. All the companies have been screened, and tested to be legit. They even, have drop ship companies, import buys, liquidation companies and more. take a free tour, to see exactly what I mean






Bulk iPods auctions start at $100 at Liquidation.com is a huge wholesaler of a variety of goods from: consumer electronics, cars, clothes, household items, computers & networking and much more. This site sells huge pallets and small boxes of items from returns, shell pulls, overstock supplies, new, refurbish items. This site gets it's products from the largest retailers in each particular category. This is the perfect source for your e-commerce needs






Discount Restaurant & Janitorial Supplies, Free Shipping on Orders Over $169!
ReStockit sells a variety of products, from restaurant supplies, glassware, Janitoial supplies, and much more. They run lots of free shipping promotions, check them out and see what they can do for you.




Buy quality China products from our online B2B store Door to Door Delivery *Best Reseller Margin* Multiple Shipping Options. get wholesale products directly from China to your door.Great products; High quality; Hassle-free import Whether reselling on-line, at wholesale or retail, buyers that are looking for quality products that deliver better margins, remember China has what you want.






uBid.com
Is a great marketplace at a fraction of resale price. At uBid.com, they offer brand-name merchandise at deep discounts, where most auctions start at $1 and come with warranties. If you're looking for quality products at wholesale prices, click on one of the links and see for yourself.




Get $10 off $100 order at FragranceX.com, use code 535FRGX at checkout!
This site sells just about every brand name fragrance, you can think of. They sell all the top brands, polo, keneth cole, calvin klein, armani, dkny, and much more. You get free shipping on orders over $59, so your cost per item will be lower!




golfoutletsusa.com
here you can buy golfing equipment and accessories at wholesale products. From bags to ball, clubs, shafts and more. You can buy a single item or even large bulk lots of goods.

Dropship from the Internet's largest Dropshipper! Simplx.com They have a huge number of different brand names to choose from, the sky is the limit. You can even have Simplx, desing your website for you.

The One Source is a great place to find the products you need and want. This is serious stuff, this is the grand daddy of product sourcing. You can find wholesale products in bulk, light bulk, import buys, and drop shipping. Keep in mind when you pay for a membership your products will more unique to the market place. Reason behind that thought is that not Evey Tom, Dick, and Harry won't be selling the same products you are.

Shopster.com Is a awesome place to start, lots of name brand products, very easy to work with. They make selling on the internet easy! With Shopster, you can sell on your Shopster online storefront or directly post listings onto the eBay marketplace - providing you with an additional channel to sell your products. 95% of Shopster's 900,000 drop ship products are auction friendly, which means you have a huge source of products to start selling immediately.

Operation Drop Ship they offer over 150,000 unique Wholesale Products, they even have a very cool template, which make selling on eBay a breeze. I believe they charge a monthly membership, but sign up for the free-trial and see if Operation Drop Ship will work for your e-commerce business.

Need products to sell online? Access over 1 Million products with hundreds of suppliers. You Sell. We Ship. You Profit. Doba.com is the prime wholesale product source for online auctions, web stores, or proprietary online stores. Start your Free Trial Today!