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How do you even compete with the big boys?
 

I have found a super good dropshipper who has a large variety of good products to sell and priced reasonably.

Doing some research I find that they sell the items alittle cheaper then I can of course because of their listing fee breaks etc.

So what is the trick to get the sales, I know price is tops but how do you get sales of items that you have to sell for a small fraction more?

I see some sellers listing 20-30 items in a row to go off every 5 minutes or so.
How do you compete with these people?

And how do they pay their fees when they only sell 2-3 of those 20 items that went off?

Sorry if this has been asked before but I really need to make some money badly and have went days on end trying to figure out how to compete for "some" of those sales.

Or am I just doing this for nothing?

I see they are only making a dollar or so a sale so how do they make any money even with the breaks they get?

Thank you.

This sounds like a job for John Shearer. He's the CEO and founder of videoprofessor.com. He's so confident you'll enjoy his free lesson on eBay, you'll come back to get more lessons on everything to do with computers.

eBay is super competitive. Keyword research is critical. Most people waste time going after the "best selling" product when there is s MUCH easier way to profit from the site. And even if you are one of the top sellers in the game, your profit margins are going got be razor thin. You will need a lot of auctions to make a full time income.

Here is a better solution - Marketing to your past customers again and again. Don't underestimate the power of this. Get a list of customers-sell to them again and again.

Another way to be successful - Avoid high competitive products if you are not an eBay Pro. Do your product research-remembering to focus on "small niches" & hard-to-find things to sell on eBay.

Thank you.

Make your auction look professional, not overloaded with crap. Always mention that you ship instantly within 24 hours. at first you will not make profit as you build feedback but then as your feedback gets better i believe your profits will grow a little bit.

Lol! Funny, funny First Edition!:pound:

If you offer quality service, people don't care about the price. I sell $40 items that others sell for $19.99 and I make a huge profit every month. The market is there. Not everyone wants everything for nothing.

This is true! I constantly sell my products higher than my competitors. Most of them have 2-3000 listings and sell for half of mine. I have about 500 listings on Ebay. My daily postage equals their daily sales. And that is only for Ebay. Once I get a buyer through Ebay, I woo them over to the website.

Yes, as usual, these are all good suggestions. I would like to mention the fact that you talked about finding a good dropshipper as your first supplier. While many people make a decent amount of cash with dropshippers, I wouldn't really recommend them as your primary supplier on a new account.

With a new account, you're trying to build feedback so that others will have confidence and Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) so that eBay will WANT you to sell on your site. Working with drop shippers right away is contrary to both those things. First, your shipping time is going to be a little longer than if you just shipped the items yourself, and this can be a KILLER to both your feedback and your DSRs. When you're starting with 0 feedback, this is especially crucial.

Next, you're putting all the hopes of your new eBay account in the hand of a 3rd party. If they screw up an order, you're on the hook for it. It also makes returns complicated, as most eBay buyers want to return the item directly to you, and when you start emailing them about returning to dropshippers, etc., they can get sketchy. Again, with a young account like this, on SNAD dispute or INR dispute could be pretty disastrous, so why risk it?

I have some thoughts/opinions of good items you should be selling your first 30 days that have worked well for me in the past. They are low or no cost to you, sell for a few bucks a piece on eBay (so you're not selling 1 cent items and get bit for selling feedback), and the packing/shipping effort is extremely minimal.

Since this isn't the subscribers' forum, I'd rather not share publicly here, but if you're interested, PM me, I don't mind at all!

Just be careful with dropshipping as your are only as good as the shipper .. my friend was dropshipping secuity items pool alarms and such and the place has some issue after a storm so he lost his account as he got hit with 50 negs in about 7 days.

Could not be said better! Again, while drop shipping works out fine for some folks, I really would avoid dropshippers altogether when your accounts are first starting.

One little mistake from the 3rd party you've chosen to represent you here could cause big problems for the eBay and PayPal accounts you've worked so hard to create.

I usually start an account with something that I am able to do myself and what everyone can use. The price is low to buy and to create. I do use a drop shipper. But, I stock about 50% of my inventory and lead out with that before I add the products that I don't carry.

Hey Everyone!

Could one of the good folks I sent my method to via PM yesterday kindly respond to my PM? I typed in a pretty thorough description, and now lots of people are asking for it. Unfortunately I lost my PMs, and I'd rather not have to type that all out again.

If you could just respond to my PM with a thanks or whatever, quoting my PM, I would greatly appreciate it!

:focus:

SMC was my Favorite ..when you scan over their products and than check ebay you see that there jus isnt a big market for 8 inch wooden motorcycles and such at least not 3 years ago .

I ran into the same problem. I found that when I drop ship, the price isn't that great. When I buy wholesale, the price is slightly better, but when I buy in quantity, the price can get really nice. One item I was selling, I was able to take a decent price and cut it in half by placing a $7,000 wholesale order. I was selling them for $10 profit, and now I sell them for $65 profit yet the auctions are still ending at the same price. The big boys are buying wholesale and buying in extremely large quantities. More than likely, that's all your drop shipper is doing, too.

It's hard to compete with the big boys. . .that's why so many of us dabble in vero

I have been following a major seller to see if I can catch onto any of his trends and found it to be amazing how someone can sell 20% of their listings and have a item going off every 1/2 from 5 pm to 11 pm and pay their ebay fees.

Doing the math there has to be something hidden such as repeat customers or something because my prices on most products are within a fraction of this seller and if I listed that much and only sold 20% the bill would be overwhelming.

I have 3500-4000 lsitings and only sell 80-150 a week ..if you use the store feature it works .

The answer is simple, they are not dropshipping, they buy their merchandise in bulk and get a huge discount. I purchase my stock in huge lots so I can get a discount, for me it's all about the cost per unit on my orders.

Another thing to keep in mind....

Some of us sell on both Amazon and Ebay, AND we pay taxes each year.

I make WAAAAYYYY more on Amazon than I do on ebay. Since I report my taxes, I sell on ebay as well, because I can report ebay sales as nearly a 100% loss and write that difference off at the end of the year to reduce the amount I have to pay.

BTW. In case any of you didn't know, this year Amazon and ebay are required to report your sales disbursments to the IRS if you generate more than $20,000 in sales AND 200 transactions in a year.

Site your sources please.




Also, amazon fees are substantially less....

The IRS doesn not report untill the year 2011 so it will be on your 2011 tax form which you will file in 2012 .. i need my credit so i also file taxes on ebay and bring my invetory totals forward ..not much losses you can file.

Also if you are writing anything off as 100% loss for more than 1 year get ready for line by line audit .

3 out of 5 years is the red flag, I assumed.


Also, the 2011 requirement is for credit card companies, merchant processors, and merchants. Not for eBay. The eBay one is new to me!

Its not Ebay .. Its Paypal that will be giving you a 1099 ...... I went through a line by line audit for the year 2000 started the audit in 2002 had all my papers for a year - it was rough year but i hire a firm where all the employees were ex Irs agents . they chrger me $1500 for the retained and another $600 upon completion but i owed nothing .

I don't think it will be a 1099, it's not exactly income.

Yes it will be a 1099 .. just google the info is pretty easy to find and was discussed on here years back when the Irs got it through ..A 1099 doesnt have to be net income it is money paid to you ..just google Irs Paypal 1099 2011 .. legislature passed few years back .

I don't think paypal is technically the one paying you though... that's my only thought. Oh well, I'll let my accounting person handle that gibble gabble


Fair tax anyone?!?!

Paypal pays me they are my collector .. my checks say paypal , my wire says paypal .. my accountany was aware of ti that why we changed everything last year to give me a 3 year headstart .. as alot of people not reporting or reporting very little and than get a big 1099 or gonna stand out .. also gonna need ss numbers and verification for the paypal accounts as this is part of the 9/11 terrorist stuff ..not sure how that will effect stealth accounts if you have to give ss number and be verified .

The only problem I see with it is, paypal is just a middle man, not a direct merchant processor. Customers are really paying you directly, but paypal is in the way. I'm sure that will come up in come kind of legal battle in the future.

Paypal already tried the legal battle and lost ..this has been going on for years ..If you are going to get in a legal battle with the IRS , you better know 100% you are correct ..ill just keep better records and pay my taxes -still better than a real job lol.

Or just stay under 20k and 200 sales a year for each account, which is about what I'm doing now anyway to avoid the selling limits.

Real job? I'm sorry sir, I take offense to that.

Take offense ,, but after working with the stress of owning my own business in the Corporate World this is like being retired -lol .

sell @@@@ merch.
 

the easiest way to make good money on ebay is sell @@@@ stuff....period. less time researching products to sell and less time making auctions. list less and make more.

Thats very good for the short term but in the long term-- ebay will only get better with detecting bad items and bad accounts ...make the easy money now and invest in good products for the long term.

easy money?




Oh right.....

If you are selling things you are not suppose to be selling and not in jail or being sued - usually called easy money .. trust me i dont sell vero and it is much harder to keep suppliers and find items and i spend 2-4 hours a day combing ebay listings to find items .. if i sold vero i would just email overseas for 10 more or 50 more or whatever more i needed .. we call it selling 'CANS OF SOUP " on the wholesale side...

I'm a CPA, registered in FL and MI. This 1099 thing won't standup. I know there are several articles out there on it. I would be VERY suprised if Ebay or Paypal or ANYONE sends you out 1099s for your sales. It's not what a 1099 is for.

1099 forms are for SERVICES PERFORMED. Not for sales of items. If you auctioned off your services for creating a website, that is a 1099 item. If you sell 500 laptop computers, that is NOT a reportable transaction. Take a look at the boxes of the 1099 forms. Not one covers the sales of products.

Think about it. It would be no different than you buying items from Best Buy online. You are then going to send Best Buy a 1099 form?? Or the credit card processor is? No way.

If this does start to happen, the IRS courts will be overwhelmed with thousands of court cases. It's not going to happen.

Having said the above, I don't suggest you non-report your ebay business or sales. If you are doing a volume of $20k+, be smart. There is a paper trail out there. Report it and hire a bean counter to write off every possible deduction to make sure you don't pay a dime more than you should to help our Government fly to another country for vacation when they tell people they're really wasting our dollars hiking in the mountains........

That is my point. It doesn't make sense.

I called Paypal today ..I have had the same account for 10 years and over 20,000 transactions , i dont use a stealth account - so if you have any other questions i can always call and ask ... i asked the CR and he said he didnt think it would be a 1099 but it will be some kind of account summary statement of Money Collected that they will REPORT TO THE IRS with your SS# or Tax ID .. I told him they have never got my SS # back in 1999 when i opened the paypal account and he they will be required to verify your ss# and MOL pull your credit or your account will be frozen or cancelled as this is a law that went into effect due to the government suspecting terroist were laundering or sending money to each other through paypal accounts and sellers under reporting their income .. Sorry i should of just called them and asked to begin with -yes First Edition you were correct on the 1099 but either way it is still going to be reported -so everyone keep good records.