If you are anything like us, you'll love all the online tools that are available to make our lives as online sellers easier and more streamlined. The SaleHoo team love finding new tools, resources and sites that enrich our online selling (we know, geeky, huh?) and we want to share all the great online tools out there with you, our loyal members, so read on as we review the best online tools and resources!
Google Insights for Search
Google Insights for Search allows you to compare search volume patterns across specific categories, geographic locations, and seasons or times of the year.
How it can help you: Google Insights for Search can tell you what people are currently searching for. This can help online sellers immensely when they are looking for new item niches. For example, if I want to get into selling camping equipment, I would search for camping equipment in the 'Shopping' category. The results tell me that people is Australian searchers are the biggest searches for camping equipment when they shop online, which means that it may be a good idea for me to sell camping equipment on eBay.com.au.
Business.gov
The official business link to the U.S Government
How it can help you: US-based sellers will find this site very handy when it comes to finding out about permits (for importing, for example), licensing, and taxation.
You can also find out answers to commonly and not-so-commonly asked questions, and information on how to (legally) start a business and how other government agencies can help you. The community forums are also very informative with plenty of business owners and government experts online and available to answer your questions.
Power Sellers Unite Auction Site Watch
Power Sellers Unite Auction Site Watch monitors the number of listings on various auction sites.
How it can help you: The statistics are updated multiple times per day and therefore provide us online sellers with real- time data on which sites are getting hot, which means it is great for those looking for eBay alternatives!
eBay Fee Calculator
A super easy to use calculator which crunches the numbers and instantly tells you how much it will cost you to sell your item on eBay.
How it can help you: This clever little calculator can help you out when it comes time to see how viable a new item you are looking into selling will be. It's always important for sellers to calculate these costs before they go bulk buying any new items, as listing fees can sometimes mean the difference between making a profit or a loss, especially for sellers interested in highly competitive products like tech supplies. .
If you want to compare fees when subscribed to different types of eBay stores, use our Fee Illustrator instead.
PhotoBucket.com
Allows you to store your item photos digitally.
How it can help you: By storing your items photo's digitally, you can have them available to you from anywhere you log on, all over the world. Not only that, but Photo Bucket has some great tools for helping you organize your images, which can help by saving you the item and frustration involved with retrieving photos for listings.
Square Trade
These guys are revolutionizing the warranty industry by offering warranties on all items (yes, including second hand ones!) at a fraction of the cost – with their warranties being up to 70% less than some in-store warranty packages.
How it can help you: This is such an exciting tool for eBay buyers and sellers – they even have special rates for us! By using Square Trade, you can offer all your buyers a warranty on electronic items like TV's, cameras, kettles, computers and laptops, mp3 players, refrigerators and washing machines and much more!
This means buyers will have so much more confidence in buying from you – so you will rake in more sales! Best of all, sellers can actually earn money by offering Square Trade warranties. Wondering how that could possibly work? Allow me to explain: You begin by simply clicking the link to activate Square Trade then you log onto eBay and enable the Square Trade feature. Easy! Square Trade then trawls through your listings and when it sees listings which are eligible for a warranty, it automatically attaches a banner to the listing, showing all potential buyers that they can easily get a warranty from you for the item.
When they buyer bids on your auction or uses the Buy It Now (BIN) feature, they will have the option of investing in a warranty from Square Trade.
Square Trade will pay you from 10-40% of the price of the warranty – so make sure you outline the benefits for your buyers in your listing description. There are no obligations, contracts or costs involved, meaning there is no risk for you either!
Auction Sniper
You know how sometimes when you are buying on eBay and your bid is the highest right up until the very end of the auction, and while you are sitting pretty and thinking you have this one in the bag, then suddenly, some guy pops out of nowhere and buys your beloved item at the very last second?! You are left feeling utterly deflated, and without the buzz of winning the great item that you just lost.
Well, rest assured that there is a solution! Auction Sniper dramatically increases your chances of winning by automatically bidding for you – you simply tell Auction Sniper what you want to buy and how much you want to pay, and leave the bidding up to them! You can start out by getting a free trial and if you like what you see, you can continue using Auction Sniper by paying them 1% of the final value (minimum of US$0.25c and a maximum of US$9.95).
How it can help you: Sellers can benefit from Auction Sniper by being able to snap up arbitrage items to re sell on eBay without having to stay up til 4am to wait for the auction to finish or without having to sit anxiously, waiting to place your bid in the final seconds before the auction finishes.
Auction Bloopers
Another great tool to help you pick up arbitrage items to re-sell on eBay and make a nice little profit – Auction Bloopers helps you find bargains by searching for products you are looking that contain misspelled keywords. How does it work? You type the correct spelling of an item you are looking for then Auction Bloopers will show you eBay listings with misspellings.
How it can help you: The beauty of this is that, as we all know, listings with misspellings do not show up in search results which means your will have little to no competition when it comes time to bid so you will get access to bargains which you can re sell on eBay (with the correct spelling, of course!) and make a great profit!
My Friendly Fox
My Friendly Fox offers a simple but very useful add-on for Firefox web browsers which adds eBay tools to your toolbar.How it can help you: eBay sellers can use this toolbar to access their listings, product price comparisons, and consumer reviews. Best of all, it offers quick access to and real-time updates on your auctions, saving you time checking and rechecking to see how your listings are going.
PayPal Fee Calculator
A handy little tool which allows you to calculate PayPal fees before you list.
How it can help you: You'll never underestimate your PayPal fees again – meaning you can list your items for much more accurate prices and get the best price possible every time.
So there you have it, our favorite online tools and resources all exposed and available for you to make the most of today!
Do you know something we don't know? If you have a favorite online tool you like to use which we haven't listed here, tell us all about it by leaving a comment below.
Comments (2)
Dropshipping on 4:19 10 Oct
Very nice resources. thanks I didn't know the Auction Bloopers website, although the "mispelling" strategy is actually very good and I have tried it before. Cheers! Alex.Peter Mueller on 10:45 17 Feb
You can also use 360-product-view to get more sales. At 360-product-view.com can you make your 3D object (360 dregees object presentation) for Free. You don't need any plugin such as Flash (don't work on iPhone),JAVA..., just copy and paste to your website or your shop Cheers Peter