STOP Trying to Make Money with eBay!

[QDF]

Guys, here's a little tip I started doing lately to grow my business.

Do you notice the 1 thing that almost EVERY single person on eBay is doing? Trying to make a profit on every item they sell!

Here's the tip: don't make a profit. (didn't see that coming did you?)

Find a product that is absolutely essential to a niche, source one of your own somewhere, make sure it is the GREATEST quality you can get (within a reasonable price), and list it cheaper than the other guys. Completely DESTROY your margin if you have to. Just sell as many as you possibly can! (HINT: If you choose the right niche, you almost always can beat the other guys price this way, cause you're not trying to make a profit, they are.)

Here's the catch - inside each package, you include a coupon of some sort that people can use at your online store for another, more expensive product (one with a much larger margin!). And now that you have them buying from your store, you can upsell them on other products as well. AND you can collect their email address.

KEYS: It helps to have a little twist on your initial product in addition to being cheaper, and make your coupon a super attractive offer that they cannot refuse, like a landing page for a direct response marketing campaign (because that's basically what it is.)

Now, what if you just listed your initial product on eBay trying to make a profit? You might sell 1 or 2 a day and make a small profit, OR you could sell 10 (or more) a day, and advertise a product with a much larger margin than the initial product. If you sold 2 products a day on eBay with $10 profit, you could make $20. If you lower the price and sell 10 a day, and 1 of those buyers goes to buy your other product that has a $40 margin, you just doubled your profit

(And that's if you weren't making any profit at all on your eBay product, and if the person who goes to your store doesn't buy any more products/upsells etc. Not to mention the fact that you have their email and they might buy again/tell other people about your brand.)

You can list your other, larger margin products on eBay as well, but make sure you have one that acts as a tripwire for your business. It's too easy not to take advantage of it. But make sure the tripwire product is absolutely essential to your niche! That is the key.

This isn't a full business plan, but if you currently have nothing, you can be bringing in cash and accumulating customers in no time. If you have a GREAT product, and you use this method the right way, you might not even need much other marketing. Repeat customers and word of mouth will carry you from here.

Like any business, great products make marketing easy, and it doesn't get much easier than this.

 

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[Shades]

a problem might be that id guess a super low percentage of ebayers even bother to look at a insert like that. They are after the best deal on the product they are interested in,. When including your time in all this process and cost to ship all those packages you are looking at a high cost of advertising. Especially to a group of buyers that you probably wont have a high conversion rate with and probably not a loyal type of customer. Wouldnt your advertising dollar be better spent elsewhere without all the hassle?

And a lesson I learned in my service business is that starting out trying to be the lowest priced guy is a bad move. Its worth the effort to provide better service, better quality products at a higher premium with better margins IMO. You will get better customers that way in the end.

 

[QDF]

a problem might be that id guess a super low percentage of ebayers even bother to look at a insert like that

That's why it has to be a really attractive offer. It works, it just has to be done right.

Wouldnt your advertising dollar be better spent elsewhere without all the hassle?

The biggest benefit here is that you get paid, THEN you advertise to the person. And you know the person is already a buyer. This method lacks a certain element of scale and you're likely not gonna build a million dollar business off of it, but if you're starting with nothing, I can't think of a much easier way. As for the time and packaging, you can get around that fairly easy.

starting out trying to be the lowest priced guy is a bad move

I'm not saying to be the lowest priced brand. Only on 1 product on eBay (and this product should be great quality as well). Your storefront is where you'll mark up your great products and build your brand.

By all means, use other marketing methods as well (I do), but IF you are going to use eBay, this is a more efficient method in my opinion.

 

[James Turchetto]

I haven't been in the ebay game since my teens and I'm looking at some good potential margins for imports should I get operations going in a couple of months. This method seems good for those, even brilliant perhaps if your profit margins are quite literally marginal to begin with but then I'd say look for better products surely. However if you have a potential profit margin of $100+ on any product you're selling then you'd be insane to kill your own profit margins just to be priced significantly lower than the competition.

I'd rather do as Shades has suggested and offer a great service experience while offering top quality products. Fast Shipping + Item as described and well package and you can't go wrong, especially as you begin to establish yourself.

I'm sure both angles work based on what the product is, but safe bets when starting out at least from my perspective.

 

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[QDF]

I haven't been in the ebay game since my teens and I'm looking at some good potential margins for imports should I get operations going in a couple of months. This method seems good for those, even brilliant perhaps if your profit margins are quite literally marginal to begin with but then I'd say look for better products surely. However if you have a potential profit margin of $100+ on any product you're selling then you'd be insane to kill your own profit margins just to be priced lower than the competition.
I'd rather do as Shades has suggested and offer a great service experience while offering top quality products. Fast Shipping + Item as described and well package and you can't go wrong, especially as you begin to establish yourself.

Take sunglasses as an example. You could still list those on eBay at your normal margins.

BUT, in addition to that, you could sell cases for sunglasses for example at a super low price. And just by a quick search on eBay, most cases for sunglasses are from Chinese sellers with long shipping times. You likely wouldn't even need that low of a price to sell a bunch. You could do this in addition to selling your sunglasses on eBay, and both would ultimately contribute to more sales of your main product.

 

[Vigilante]

Great post. Speed+. Thinking outside of the box. eBay has 100,000,000+ registered users, most of which are buyers that never sell anything. There's a tremendous amount of harvesting that can be done on eBay.

If you use an eBay customers email address for activity outside of eBay, and the customer reports you to eBay for spam, you will have your account permanently suspended for violating eBay TOS. It only takes one report from one customer to eBay.

However, if you drive them to you through the "bounce back" materials, and then they directly subscribe to you outside of eBay... totally fair game.

More on bounce back offers : http://dirtymarketingsecrets.com/bounce-back-offers/

 

[MJ DeMarco]

The official name for this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

Thanks for sharing.

 

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[Joe Cassandra]

I like the thinking out of the box.

It's much like those conferences that are "free." The presenters putting them on are eating all the costs for all the freeloaders. But the catch is they upsell you for 10-50k in "INSIDERS material" that makes the free event suddenly profitable because it only takes a handful to buy to turn a profit.

 

[jon.a]

This is a great debate. Keep it going.

 

[James Fake]

the standard tripwire technique. Learned this out in at conference in San Diego..

Puts the people who make a living/profit off those items out of business. Heard a story of someone doing this and putting an old lady out of business, she called them crying, etc. Oh well; dog eat dog world I guess.

 

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[Justin.p]

Take sunglasses as an example. You could still list those on eBay at your normal margins.

BUT, in addition to that, you could sell cases for sunglasses for example at a super low price. And just by a quick search on eBay, most cases for sunglasses are from Chinese sellers with long shipping times. You likely wouldn't even need that low of a price to sell a bunch. You could do this in addition to selling your sunglasses on eBay, and both would ultimately contribute to more sales of your main product.

The big question: is this thread based on something that has been field tested and proven in execution, or just a theory of something that "might" be possible if the stars align?

Sunglasses - personally if i want a case I hunt it down at the same time - same with camera cases etc. always. Personally I've bought a hundred things on eBay over the years but never cared about seller's eBay store because I'm not usually buying more than 1 item in a category.

Then again I'm just one consumer; it is hypothetically possible everyone else behaves very differently. I just wouldn't count on it without seeing it.

 

[QDF]

The big question: is this thread based on something that has been field tested and proven in execution, or just a theory of something that "might" be possible if the stars align?

Sunglasses - personally if i want a case I hunt it down at the same time - same with camera cases etc. always. Personally I've bought a hundred things on eBay over the years but never cared about seller's eBay store because I'm not usually buying more than 1 item in a category.

Then again I'm just one consumer; it is hypothetically possible everyone else behaves very differently. I just wouldn't count on it without seeing it.

That was just an example - probably not the best one. All I know is I am using this and it works for me. Relevance between products, quality of products, attractiveness of offer, sales copy, and margins will all affect whether it works or not. Test and find out. It's just a different approach to eBay.

 

[Joe Cassandra]

That was just an example - probably not the best one. All I know is I am using this and it works for me. Relevance between products, quality of products, attractiveness of offer, sales copy, and margins will all affect whether it works or not. Test and find out. It's just a different approach to eBay.

When you've tested, what have you found to be the most important factor to make it work for you:

1) The initial quality of the low margin "tripwire" product
2) The customer service of the 1st product
3) Copywriting for the coupon in the box
4) The relevance of the product/pain in the MAIN product
5) Other

Great work!

 

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[QDF]

When you've tested, what have you found to be the most important factor to make it work for you:
1) The initial quality of the low margin "tripwire" product
2) The customer service of the 1st product
3) Copywriting for the coupon in the box
4) The relevance of the product/pain in the MAIN product
5) Other
Great work!

The most important part initially is that the customer feels that are getting a TON of value for their money. Obviously, the more value they think they are getting, the more likely they are to be happy with you and to look at your coupon (and act on it). If they're pissed off at you already, they'll probably just rip the product out of the package and throw away anything that might be with it and you won't get any farther.

Also, don't just choose any random product in your niche to advertise to your buyers. Find or create a product that the niche REALLY needs or wants - a product that when they see, they just say "Hey! I have to have that!". Maybe they never saw the product before, or maybe they never thought much about it before, but you want them to have that "Aha!" moment when they look at your coupon (and if you provide enough value initially, they will almost always look at your coupon). Once they have that "Aha!" moment, they are basically waiting on you to convince them to buy the product. This is where the copy comes in.

Every piece is vital in making it work, but the most important part is having a product to advertise to the buyers that your niche really needs or wants. Or just something to create a great offer: a great discount, bundle, etc. Creating great offers is a craft - perfect it and you'll own your niche.

Here is an amazing article on crafting offers:

http://www.trainingcoursematerial.c...esistable-offer-your-prospects-cannnot-refuse

^If I had to pick one thing, it would be this. Make your offer impossible to refuse. Perhaps a double tripwire (your eBay product & your coupon) to get them to go to your store and then upsell them and collect their email for later? I don't know, find what works...but make your offer so great they would feel stupid to turn it down. The main benefit of this? You can test all day long and won't lose money. Then you can take your offers and use them with paid traffic.

 

[Mattie]

Usually I like investigating before I buy, which means I read all the boxes, and go to many stores before I buy. I'm really weird about that, I'll go through the whole mall and go back. I'll look on e-bay to check prices, online stores and check prices. Whose got the best deal. I never really pay attention to what people guarantee or promote. But I guess if your a side walk, you're not that smart.