Dezamondo's Developer Diary

[Dezzamondo]

Hey Fastlaners!

I thought I'd put a slight spin on the progress threads and keep track of the nitty gritty developer side of the system I'm building, whilst ramping it up and maximising its returns in the fastlane. I'm not overly worried about anyone "stealing" my idea. Unless you know the market inside out, you've got a better chance of selling ice to Eskimos! If Felix Dennis is reading this thinking, "hmm... sounds interesting" THROW ME SOME MONEY PLEASE! Anyway, back to reality...

About Me
I am 23 and work in the UK Magazine and Newspaper industry. Its a massively declining market and people have been feeling the pinch, badly, since the 2007 recession. I've worked in logistics and financial automation since I was 19 and have been programming since I was 7. However, I chose not to go into programming as a career because I want to keep my hobby a passion, controling every aspect of what I choose to build. I enjoy business and solving problems other people haven't acted upon, and my route to the fastlane aims to keep those traits close to my heart.

About The Industry
The Magazine industry in the UK is commanded by two main players in wholesale distribution; one company I currently work for, and their competitor. There are a few independents as well, but they are less than 10% of the market.
Some quick facts(ish):

• 60,000+ retailers handled between wholesale, along with intermediaries for some retail groups.
• 8 Main distributors feeding into wholesale for the majority of Mags (titles)
• 500+ publishers feeding into said pubishers
• Circa ~4000 titles in regular production (excluding newspapers)

Problem(s)
The industry as a whole, lacks transaprency and efficient communication between all of the big players. Thats not to say it doesn't work, do some research and the distribution figures will show you how well it works. I'm just saying it could be done better ;-) Too much time is spent, checking and verifying other people's claims, updates and accuracy. It diverts efforts from maximising sales and building relationships... If only there was a better way of doing things... :smxF:


FastLane Business
This is where I come in. I plan to centralise parts of the industry and bring about a level of transparency that everyone has the potential to benefit from in some way. And I plan to do it a little bit like this:

• build version 0.01 of my platform to test the idea and show key players the concept and its benefits in action.
• garner interest and feedback from a selection of different [potential] customers.
• make any ESSENTIAL tweaks (I don't want to get stuck in the mud with trying to build something that does everything right off the bat. Basic functionality first, then refine and develop further... too many people fall into that trap and miss out on making money...including ME!!)
• Go LIVE and roll with it!

This is just the skeleton framework and like all good plans, its more than likely to evolve as it goes along. I plan to use this thread to keep track of my progress, from developing the product, through to taking on my first paying client. Hopefully, there might just be a few of you crazy peeps on here to keep me company along the way. Oh and if you beat me to the punch, thanks. You would have made my life even easier at work

Next step, blue sky analysis and deign refinement.

Wish me luck!

Dezza

 

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[andviv]

Thanks for sharing your plan, and best of luck.

I have always thought that the lack of transparency in some older industries helps the incumbents.

The existing market owners know how to navigate these dark waters.

Why would they embrace your solution?

That is, assuming you want to have them as your clients... did I understand this correctly?

 

[Dezzamondo]

Thanks andviv, nice to see someone else with the same view

My clients would be the bigger players (wholesalers, distributors and people managing larger multiple groups). My USP would be the speed at which changes can be made, across all parties, as and when they happen. A six-week industry standard lead in time for any changes just isnt cutting it anymore and everyone seems to be suffering as a result.

Hopefully, my product(s) will be solid enough to confince them to spend some money to help save them money in the long run. In the grand scheme of things, I'd be asking for small change... just using the fastlane principle of scalability and taking that change from thousands of customers.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Dezzamondo]

Well, its been a week and I'm just about ready for an update!

Almost completely automated my own job with my curent employer now (not part of my job description btw!) and I'm faster and more accurate than ever . The big boss certainly seems to be enjoying the transformation of my team; from slow responses to business needs/changes (days...); to having everthing that comes in, answered / completed within 30 mins. Not to tempt fate or blow my own trumpet, but now I'm effectively working 1 day a week, every Monday and get to spend the rest of my time working on my own stuff. Since I still keep one eye open for fresh queries, the extra time I have means they get answered even faster than ever!

Now for the best bit.

The big boss has essentially given me free reign over anything I need towards my personal development. He's trying to fast track me to take over my current boss when he eventually (read hopefully) leaves. So as part of the "development plan" I worked out with them, I'm now going to be getting much greater exposure to the big market players, our compatitors and our end retailers... It's almost as if I just engineered myself into networking directly with the very clients I'm going to be targeting in the next few months, whilst still keeping my normal paycheck! :smxF:

Other than that, I'm reading up on project management and storyboarding my idea to get as much as humanly possible onto paper. Next step, finish up, break it down and start development!

 

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[Dezzamondo]

Heading Uphill... Behind The Lorries... Time to Pull Over To Read The Map

Bloody Hell, what a month.

Its been a while since my last post and quite a lot has happened since then. I spent two weeks in Thailand to visit family I've not seen in 15 years, helped them make some extra cash at the local market (Selling bags of deep-fried crickets @ ~US$8/kilo was certainly an experience!!!), before having some R&R as a tourist with elephants by day and exercising my negotiation (read "haggling") skills at market stalls by night. If you guy want to see market explotation, go find any local market in the world and see it in action for yourself!

Anyhoo, after eating my own bodyweight in street food & recovering from excessive beer consumption, I returned home to the UK. I had left various industry players with some questions to ponder over, and the beginnings of my prototype capabilities, just before I went on holiday. Probably not the smartest move to start with.

Needless to say, response has been less than favourable. What little response there has been has pretty much raised a rather large hurdle for me to get over. Primarilly, my target market of retailers utilise their own category management systems, as you'd expect. This in itself isn't a problem. The problem lies in their existing deep-rooted processes for category management. Why would they want to duplicate THEIR efforts in a bid to get the REST of the industry aligned with them? This is especially hard to counteract when they find it easier to simply email whatever spreadsheets & reports they've already made to everyone on their mailing list. The way they seem to see it is "If someone else screws up, we'll beat them down for compensation" or words to that effect.

I don't know if this is merely isolated to individual retailers, or whether is an industry-wide epidemic, but the impression I got was that there is a considerable lack of value & respect between different parties in the Mags industry. Hopefully I'm wrong, and this whole "Compensation Culture" view IS just a one off :/

I certainly don't want to come across as whiney and whipped, but its certainly a bit of a knock, especially at such an early stage. Perhaps I'm breaking the comandment of Control or simply demand. Eiter way, this project is going to be put on hold until I can infiltrate the industry players some more and netowrk with the powers that be. I've not given up just yet.

On the plus side, its given me plenty of food for thought and hardened me against rejection.

BUT thanks to Amail & the Fastlane Judges, I've got a new venture to sink my teeth into Bring on the Fastlane Competition!

If you guys are taking a beating anytime, just take it with a pinch of salt and remember:

When one door closes, locks, double bolts and then sets on fire, another door opens. You've just got to opn your eyes and find it.

See you in the competition.
Dezzamondo

PS: Here's my blog entry! https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/blogs/dezzamondo/268-dezzamondo-vs-world-fastlane-competition.html

 

[Dezzamondo]

Dezamondo Vs. The World - Items in, testing, Testing, Items out...

We'll I'll be damned.

Less than a week ago I contacted my first supplier in Hong Kong for a sample of SD memory cards. Within 4 days the sample finally arrived. Now the lot's undergoing testing and has blown my expectations with the product I've bought thm for (more will be explained once I've started selling the things! ).

It's a bizzarrly satisfying feeling to have £100+ worth of product in your hands that will hopefully soon turn into £200 with a few more hours of work! I can already feel my ebay listings writing themselves, with some youtube videos to back up my marketing claims.

For those of you sitting there, thinking about starting their own business, umming and aaahing about products and the like; Screw it. Just Do it. $100 will test your ideas in most cases and give you the boost in confidence you probably need. Reading about business is one thing. Absorbing the info around the fastlane is another thing. But going out there and putting that kowledge to the test and putting your oney where your mouth is, is something else entirely.

This time next week, my first set of listings will be up

Good luck whatever you decide!
Dezzamondo

 

[Amail]

Rock.
And.
Roll.

Congratulations - feels great, doesn't it? The machine actually does work!

Now, turn that crank! Speed +

 

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[PatrickP]

Something doesn't look right.

Are those scan disk knock offs?

 

[911Carrera]

Something doesn't look right.

Are those scan disk knock offs?

Hahaha, I was thinking the same thing.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I thought so as well but actually I think sandisk is the brand name. I just checked and I bought some sandisk from Walmart a few months back.

 

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[PatrickP]

Yes Sandisk is a huge very well known brand.

So why is a diff Chinese manufacturer selling a few at a time to a reseller.

As well as the packaging.

Hence the post something doesn't look right.

Are they KnockOffs Which is an illegal imitation of a branded product.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Sorry I noticed your spelling scandisk vs sandisk and thought you meant something else. Duh.

 

[andviv]

Rep++ for taking action.

Let us know how it goes when selling them.

 

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[Dezzamondo]

ScanDisK eh? Not heard of them before, but SanDisk is quite a popular brand in the UK at least.

The supplier in Hong Kong for these products is more of a wholesale distributor than the manufacturer as far as I can tell. I've been testing the units and they certainly seem like the genuine article. The higher end ones (to the right of the picture) even come with genuine, working access codes for another service SanDisk provides.

I think once I can get a steady set of sales going and can forcast a substantial order, I'll try and fish out the actual manufacturer(s) and try to get a better price.

Where my business differs from most, I'm not just re-selling the cards. I'm loading them up with product "X" and (hopefully) shipping them onto customers.

Preliminary testing has confirmed my own hypothesis, and now I need to squeeze even more performance if I can and youtube some comparison videos.

To top things off, its our local Beer Festival for the next three days and I'm going to celebrate the start of something beautiful!

As Amail says, "Turn That Crank!"

Cheers!
Dezzamondo

 

[miked_d]

It's a bizzarrly satisfying feeling to have £100+ worth of product in your hands that will hopefully soon turn into £200 with a few more hours of work! I can already feel my ebay listings writing themselves, with some youtube videos to back up my marketing claims.

If you can make 100% profit on the cards, there is a high probability they are fake. There is a huge problem with fakes on eBay.

I suggest you read this:

On MicroSD Problems « bunnie's blog

 

[Dezzamondo]

If you can make 100% profit on the cards, there is a high probability they are fake. There is a huge problem with fakes on eBay.

Thats a very good point Mike. Something that been niggling in the back of my mind for a while. Thankfully, after some testing, the performance of each card seems pretty legit. Just been writing my eBay listings for the 4 cards and I think I'll use that point (or at least bits of it) to my advantage.

 

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[Dezzamondo]

Guys I need your opinions!

I've beein doing a LOT of testing on the SD cards I've bought and have come to the conclusion that they are legit. I'm just about ready to start my first eBay listings and want to get some feedback on my copywriting skills first!

In case you've not already put the pieces together, the market I'm aiming for is the higher end market for the Raspberry Pi computers that launched earlier this year. To make them run, you need an SD card with the operating system installed. people can do it themselves but its a pain in the a$$ to be honest! My offer to people is the SD card with everything they need to start, ready and rearing to go. The main difference between me and the rest of my competitors is that I'm offering much higher performing cards as opposed to the cheap, overpriced crap everyone else is peddling.

So without further ado, here's my highest-end SD card listing text so far. your feedback is most welcome.

TITLE: SD card for Raspberry Pi – Fully Tested SanDisk 32 SDHC Class 10 95MB/s
SUBTITLE: Preloaded with the current: Raspbian “Wheezy†v 2012-08-16

Welcome to my eBay listing for a SanDisk 32GB SDHC Class 10 SD card with a transfer rate of 95MB/s, preloaded with the Raspbian “Wheezy†operating system for the Raspberry Pi. In this listing, you also get a free 12 month subscription code to SanDisk’s RescuePRO Delux recovery software.

The current version being distributed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is:
2012-08-16-wheezy-raspbian.
This version comes complete with a plethora of enhancements since the Pi’s launch earlier this year, including improved performance with higher quality SD cards. The card’s partition has also been extended to the full 32GB of the card.

As a SanDisk 95MB/s Class 10 card, data transfer rates are far better than some unbranded cards and ideal for hobbyists who want the ULTIMATE performance from their Pi. Branded SDHC cards, especially SanDisk, with higher data transfer rates and classes offer users even greater performance, right up to the physical limits of the Raspberry Pi hardware.

A quick overview of some of the basic direct read/write rates I’ve managed to achieve without overclocking the Pi can be seen in the following table:

Write Speed Read Spead
Rate (MB/s) Rate (MB/s)
Sandisk Class 4 7.70 10.90
Sandisk Class 10 - 30MB/s 10.30 20.90
Sandisk Class 10 - 45MB/s 17.30 20.70
Sandisk Class 10 - 95MB/s 20.60 21.50

~20MB/s is about as fast as you can get at the moment during direct reading/writing (for you linux fans, this was tested using “dd†and some logic. I’m more than happy to share the code with you if you want to try it yourself) with the current hardware/software setup of the pi.

There are certainly faster unbranded cards available out there, especially on eBay, but my one word of warning to anyone considering buying one is, “reliabilityâ€. Unbranded cards in most cases have a much shorter working life compared to genuine branded ones. Some are even deliberately modified from lower capacity cards to APPEAR larger before mysteriously corrupting themselves! So please be careful when you buy from others online!

My Guarantee
To help tackle counterfeit products from being circulated within the UK, every unit I sell has been thoroughly tested by myself within the UK. I verify its reported speed and guarantee you are getting bona-fide SanDisk cards with superior working lives and the highest quality in comparison to cheaper imitations. If you feel that you are NOT getting the speeds you should be, send back the card via recorded delivery and I’ll refund the cost of the item price you bought it for (You will be responsible for return postage though). For Windows users new to Linux, please note that if you plug the SD card into your windows operating system its size will appear to be 50MB or something else pretty small. It’s not a deception, it’s simply windows not being able to naturally interpret some Linux files.

If you would like one of the lower budget cards to get some serious performance from your Pi, check out my other eBay listings to see what other offers are still available.

This item is currently only available to UK residents and will be shipped via first class recorded post as standard.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Dezzamondo

Any glaring concerns or comments?

Muchos Grassy-arse,
Dezzamondo

 

[andviv]

Raspberry Pi users are, mostly, cheap (i.e. why pay for a fancy SD card when I can get the same for half?)

The text looks OK to me. Techie enough, so the users will believe they are buying from somebody who understands the linux/raspberry pi architecture.

Good luck with the listing, and please do send me the link once it is up and running, k?

 

[Amail]

Are you selling in the US too?

 

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[bernieshawn]

What about throwing some more benefits as opposed to features in the title/subtitle?

TITLE: Lightning Fast SD Card for Raspberry Pi - SanDisk 32 SDHC Class
SUBTITLE: No Installation Necessary! Comes Preloaded with Latest Raspbian OS

Then hit them with all the specs and numbers later in the post.

I'm not a copywriting genius or anything, just an idea!

 

[miked_d]

Auction looks good. Can the Pi take advantage of the Class 10 speeds? Maybe show some benchmarks.

I thought about selling the pre-installed SD cards but don't have the Linux experience.

There is another person in UK that sells a whole set of Rasp Pi accessories. Cables, keyboards, mice, etc all tested and guaranteed to work with the Pi. It all looked like cheap generic China stuff but people are buying. Market should pickup once they get production sorted.

 

[Adam_C]

We sell those 'extreme' Sandisks at work, stupid prices they are too.

 

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[Dezzamondo]

TITLE: Lightning Fast SD Card for Raspberry Pi - SanDisk 32 SDHC Class
SUBTITLE: No Installation Necessary! Comes Preloaded with Latest Raspbian OS

I like it Bernie! I liked it so much I may well have used it in my test listings I had to cut it down a little due to the character limits... but the effect is still the same. Thanks!

Are you selling in the US too?

All in good time Amail I've got some red tape with British import / export laws to sort out first, but once thats out the way I'll be able to legally add international shipping to my bow!

Raspberry Pi users are, mostly, cheap

Thats a good generalisation Andviv Seeing as the Pi is designed for kids to buy with their pocket money I certainly understand the point you're making. However, the first bulks of people who bout them were mostly seasoned develpers whanting a new toy to play with!(myself included!). One other thing that crossed my mind was that kids these days are also pretty impatient. The Pi is incredibly slow by today's expcted standards, so I think I should be able to work some of the market round to my point of view with some videos and well placed articles relating to speed enhancements. As for the links; please see below and let me know what you think! Much appreciated

Can the Pi take advantage of the Class 10 speeds?

This was a big issue at the start for a few months. Its taken until July for the foundation to get it sorted out to the extent where higher cards can be used. The downside is, the board maxes out on data rates at 20MB/s up and down, regardless of the ability of the card. Hopefully some of the bright sparks in the comunity will have an eureka moment and figure out how to improve it even further, but until then I'm happy with hitting the maximum speed limit


For those of you who'd like to take a look at the listings, here you go:
- Basic - Lightning Fast SD Card for Raspberry Pi - Standard SanDisk 32 SDHC Class 4 | eBay
- Better - Lightning Fast SD Card for Raspberry Pi - 30MBs SanDisk ULTRA 32GB SDHC Class 10 | eBay
- Much Better - Lightning Fast SD Card for Raspberry Pi - SanDisk EXTREME 32GB SDHC Class 10 | eBay
- Ultimate - THE ULTIMATE SD Card for Raspberry Pi - SanDisk EXTREME PRO 32GB SDHC Class 10 | eBay

Some of the pictures aren't exactly ideal at the moment, but other than that, your opinions and feedback would be most welcome

Well, now I'm off to a wedding.

Cheers!
Dezzamondo

 

[andviv]

As for the links; please see below and let me know what you think! Much appreciated

The ULTIMATE, in uppercase, did grab my attention.

The text in the listing looks technically correct and did convey what I wanted to know.

Centered text? I found it hard to read. [is there any best-practice recommendation for listings? is it centered better than left?]

Thats a good generalisation Andviv Seeing as the Pi is designed for kids to buy with their pocket money I certainly understand the point you're making. However, the first bulks of people who bout them were mostly seasoned develpers whanting a new toy to play with!(myself included!).

Good point.

One other thing that crossed my mind was that kids these days are also pretty impatient. The Pi is incredibly slow by today's expcted standards, so I think I should be able to work some of the market round to my point of view with some videos and well placed articles relating to speed enhancements.

I like the idea of the videos...

Also, make sure you follow the Raspberry Pi twitter account, talk about them, mention them a lot, and make sure to use the hashtag to point people to your videos...

If their official account retweets your links, you will get lots of traffic, for sure.

 

[Amail]

Centered text? I found it hard to read. [is there any best-practice recommendation for listings? is it centered better than left?]

I find centered hard to read too. However, it seems like it's typical for any boilerplate stuff, like Shipping & Return policies. Maybe make the description left justified but leave the title and policies sections centered.

 

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[Dezzamondo]

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreaciated.

Also, make sure you follow the Raspberry Pi twitter account, talk about them, mention them a lot, and make sure to use the hashtag to point people to your videos...

If their official account retweets your links, you will get lots of traffic, for sure.

I hadn't actually thought of trying the twitter route before. The idea that people would want to condense everything into just 140(or is it 120?) characters never really clicked with me. But you certainly do raise a very good point. A quick stat-fart reveals they've got 66,236 followers(!) Looks like I need to cobble together some videos, get myself on twitter and make a name for myself! Thanks Andviv.

I find centered hard to read too.

I was deliberating with the whole left/center justify issue throughout writing the pages too, after all its not a poem! I think I might experiment with the two settings on the next listings and see if it makes a difference. Did a quick google search to see if someone's done any research and this thread popped up again!

One interesting thing I've found, is the most expensive item listed is also the most viewed. Could it be down to "THE ULTIMATE..." in the listing title, the extreme price tag in comparison to everything else, a mix of the two or something else entirely? I guess it could potentially be dreamers doing some window shopping, especially considering the Pi's target market.

Your thoughts?

 

[Dezzamondo]

Victory Will Be Mine!

So I was finishing work today when I got two emails; 1) Paypal payment received from xxxx... and 2) You've sold your eBay item!

WOOHOO! (minor) Victory!

My first sale was the second most expensive item I had listed @ £44.99 (~USD$ 80-90), almost 8 times more expensive than the cheapest cards (~£5) being sold. It woul cerainly seem that performance pays

Astonishingly that single sale has paid 52% of my initial investment (exc P&P) and I'm still coming to grips with what has just happened. Over the moon to say the least

However, I can't let myself get complacent. I made a sale, so what? I still have 3 cards that havent sold, and another 3 on their way over for testing. One sale is a start, but its not fastlane... not yet anyway... I have some fundamental problems with my listings as they stand, particularly from the feedback from you guys and points raised in a few other threads around the forum. So here's some of the holes I have:

• People found the listings hard to read. Centre-Justify doesn’t bode well with a lot of people.
  
• People Rank by Price + P&P: Lowest First. DUH! I do it all the time, why would I want to pay more for the same thing with someone else when I buy anything on eBay? My products are for the higher end of the market… so I’m instantly at the bottom of the searches! Whoops!
  
• Shit pictures. Whilst showing the physical product people will be getting helps ME to decide if something is worth bidding for, it doesn’t discount the need for GOOD photography. The lighting is poor & surprisingly glary in places, the focus is hit and miss and the background is inconsistent (was taken on a piece of white card… but the glare from some lights meant I had to take the shots from another angle where you could see the bloody carpet!)
  
• Raspberry Pi is designed to be CHEAP. Trying to avoid the “I told you so†from andviv on this one . Perhaps, due to the nature of the Pi and what it stands for, Pi users in general a very conservative with their money (kids with pocket money to save, etc.)? The majority of first orders were from Developers and they buy stilly things like iPads and MacBooks! I know someone's prepared to pay up to £44.99 for a card, but what about £78.99? Too much for this market maybe (btw, RRP is USD$179.99!!!)

So with that in mind, I have a few quick wins & plenty more to sink my teeth into for round two of listings:

• Restructure the format and layout of the listings. LEFT JUSTIFY and block things together (I write technical documents & training for non-technical people so I should have known better in the first place! )
  
• Re-photograph the items AND tart them up with branding and “pretty†stuff. Ordered myself a simple light studio to help with soft lighting and a more professional look. I’ve also got to go find my DSLR bridge camera (SLR and Digital Camera hybrid… I don’t take photos of bridges!) somewhere in my storage container to take some proper macro shots, instead of my phone! I did borrow a family Coolpix camera and it was terrible for close-ups.
  
• Improve ranking with cheaper items bulked together in ONE listing. Thanks TK for this one, I’ve seen it myself and thought what crafty bastards the other sellers were for using this tactic, but it certainly seems to do the job! To help with this one, I’m going to load the 4 types I currently own together and then fire-sell some cheaper samples (~USD$19 each) that are due to arrive for testing soon in the same listing.
  
• Expand my product line from solely 32GB cards. Bit of a no-brainer really. I bought the original sample with the intent of supplying to the higher end of the market only. Perhaps there’s more demand for the lower capacity cards with just as good a profit margin (in % terms). This will be market test #2.
  
• Keep pricing in line with current market values. If all of the above doesn’t work then it could be as simple as all of what I’ve got on offer is simply too expensive. This one that sold coul just be a complete fluke, so I can’t really rule this out until I’ve eliminated all the other options above first. If making all those changes does nothing, then I’ll have to devise a strategy for a pricing re-structure. HOPEFULLY though, I won’t need to cross that bridge.

So there you have it. In the space of a week, I've tested, listed and by tomorrow morning, will have shipped my first order to the handsome tune of GBP£44.99.

Happy days

Thanks for your support throughout guys, its much appreciated!

 

[andviv]

A Victory is a victory.

Excited for you.

Well done.

I like the way you are breaking the points here....

I know someone's prepared to pay up to £44.99 for a card, but what about £78.99?

I am wondering the same.... I guess we will find out soon, huh?

Rep++

 

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[Dezzamondo]

Building On Experiences & Advice

Its been a busy couple of weeks, but I seem to be getting somewhere!

Round two is now LIVE on eBay over the next 5 days with a third one due for testing later.

See for yourself how its evolved!

The main changes made were:
- Combined listing of all products on offer (with the addition of some additional, cheaper stock used for testing)
- Re-jigged sales copy (left justified too! )
- Improved picture quality & basic personal branding

Looking at the rankings, I now appear on the first page for the search "Raspberry Pi SD Card" (at the bottom) using Best Match, Second Page in the middle using P&P Lowest First and second when ranked P&P Highest First.

My competitiors are all gunning for the same, using smaller cards with prices around £6. I guess I could jump on the band wagon and open my doors to smaller capacities (and profit margins) or I could think outside the box. Just now I've had an idea, inspired by another seller... I could sell the OS on CD @ 50p or something else ridiculously low to take me to the top of the searches!

Its a bit of a crafty tactic, but this area on eBay seems to be growing in competitors! I wonder if any of them are Fellow fastlaners?

As always, I'd be interested to get your opinions on the listing and the proposed CD idea.

On a side note, I should be setting up my first Ltd company in the next two weeks after mentoring from some "Business Advisors" from the local council.

Look who's starting to roll!

 

[andviv]

The main changes made were:
- Combined listing of all products on offer (with the addition of some additional, cheaper stock used for testing)
- Re-jigged sales copy (left justified too! )
- Improved picture quality & basic personal branding

Me likes it!
I think the pic can still be better, it looks a little blurry to me. What are the constraints in size and resolution for ebay postings?

Just now I've had an idea, inspired by another seller... I could sell the OS on CD @ 50p or something else ridiculously low to take me to the top of the searches!

Nice idea. Go for it. Do what it takes to get to the top.

but this area on eBay seems to be growing in competitors! I wonder if any of them are Fellow fastlaners?

you mean fastlaners selling SD cards for PI on ebay in the UK? I doubt it.
You mean selling cheaper stuff to reach the top? --The White House does not Deny or Confirm any allegation in regards to this matter.