Simple 5 step method for mega sales this holiday season

Hi everyone,

I'm just started this thread for anyone who might have any questions about our blog series on getting ready for Christmas and the holidays in 2012. It's not far away now and it's the most profitable time of the year for retailers!

I want to make sure you get the most out of it, so we a revealing a cool 5 step method to help you make some money this Christmas!

You can check out the blog posts here:

Intro to the series:

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Part one: How to find a profitable niche:

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Part two: Finding a drop shipper to work with:

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Part three is coming soon!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here, or just leave a comment on the blog posts.

Thanks :)

Really learning a lot from this new mini series, Alice :) A big thanks!

Today we received the following questions in Support and I think other members might find Alice's replies helpful -

1. In your video u explained that an item's supply could be greater than its demand. can you please elaborate how to find it out , or what indicates it on Pulse.eBay

Alice: If an items supply is greater than it's demand, it's not a niche item. In eBay Pulse, we can see demand, but not supply. eBay Pulse doesn't answer all the questions we need to ask before we can determine a niche, it just helps us gather ideas. You need to use the SaleHoo Research Lab and or eBay Completed Listings data to determine supply and whether there is room for you in the market.

2. Does a niche market change every day (just because pulse.eBay indicates a daily search) ?

Alice: eBay Pulse data doesn't change a lot actually - the products you see on the eBay Pulse home page usually stays there for a few months. Good niches should always have a steady flow of demand from buyers

3. Are you suggesting that a niche product (smaller market) is more profitable than "everyone & anyone" product ?

Alice: Yes, definitely. This is simply because if you try and sell an item that anyone and everyone wants, you will no doubt be competing with many other sellers who are also selling the same thing. Keep your audience a little narrower to avoid this. Follow this rule: Think of an audience or a market first, THEN think of a product.

Cheers!

Not to be a nitpicker, but there's a somewhat egregious math error in Alice's example projection:

Number of people who visit your website/listing x the % of those visitors that purchase from you x how much money you make per sale x average number of transactions from each customer = your gross profit.

Right, but ...

For example, let’s say I sell wall calendars and 100 people come to my website or my listings every day. If I convert 20% of those people, I make 20 sales. If I sell each wall calendar for $10, I turnover $200 per day. If each customer buys from me on average 2 times in their lifetime, my gross profit would be $400/day or $146,000/year.

I don't know about you but I could sure do with an extra $146,000 per year!

Turnover ≠ gross profit, and gross profit ≠ income, and lifetime ≠ year.

If calendars are being sold at $10, and she pays say $5 for them (just to make the math simple) then her average gross profit per day is $100, or $36,525 a year. Minus selling fees,postage, storage, hosting, promotions, supplies, help, and all the other myriad costs associated with running the sort of business that could fulfull more than seven thousand orders a year, which is a prety serious full time effort for one person to try to handle on his own.

I understand that the example was just kind of "napkin math" used to illustrate the example, but conflating profit with sales and repeat sales with recurring sales make for dangerous results when trying to teach people new to the business.


Frank

Hi Frank,

Thank you for your diligent attention to my math :)

This certainly was "napkin math" to illustrate a point - you're right about that but I've edited the blog post to show the equation more accurately. Thanks again.