Need help from fellow eBayers on starting up my business

Hi!I have ben a member of salehoo and ebay for a least a year. I have purchased a website and two dropping packages. I have yet to sell an item. My web site is loaded with many items from a number of dropshippers :wink: but i don't know where to start. I don't want to list an item that would not sell. Ebay fees are small but because of the currency exchange i will need to be careful. please tell me from your experence where to start.
Denese :lol: :lol:

i don't want to burst your bubble, but i believe dropshipping has more headaches than remedies. To be succesful in selling goods you have to have your own stock or wholesaler you can purchase certain items for resale. So depending on your current situration i would be sourcing wholesale goods to buy and sell. This is my opinion.
good luck hope this helps.
cheers
darryl

Well many questions:

Do you have a merchant account setup on your site?
Do you have a Shopping cart Setup on your site?
Is browsing your site easy?
Do you have proper contact information on your site?
Do you have site monitoring? Can you view your Traffic and unique visitors?

And last but not least are you advertising your site?

Most of these issues are detrimental in running a website.
Also you need to set yourself aside from the rest of the sites that sell the same kinds of products.

Dear Jimmy
I know i should have ask your advice before i purchase the site. But i was too excited by the offer from dropshipdesign.com, anyway all of these things are provided with the package that i bought. I just need to market it.
Thanks Denese

Denese

I have some ideas you might be able to use...email me. Thanks.

Hello Jimmy! Can you please advice which softwares to use to creating a website? Like softwares to creating company's logo, etc....

I just want to take my business to the next level =). I pay an average of $400-$700 per month on ebay and I am thinking if I create my own website, I will save alot $$$ in the long run and those fees I pay eBay will go into my pocket =)

Thanks so much in advance!

Someone please tell me a item that they were sucessful with. Just for starters i have not been able to sell anything after listing a number of auctions. No one seem interested in my items.

Thanks: steppingsstones

For starters, don't go with items that ebay is saturated with, like handbags, electronics and such. finding more everyday items are more likely to sell. At least that is what I am finding out. Dropshipping was an absolute nightmare for me because with all the internet fraud going on, merchants have been more reluctant to ship to a different address that is not the billing address. I have found that buying wholesale is much easier and people like to buy from someone that has the merchandise right there. That way if there are any requests to see more views of the item, you can send them more pictures. Also, they know that the shipping is usually faster, depending on how the seller does with shipping.

Hello Jimmy! Can you please advice which softwares to use to creating a website? Like softwares to creating company's logo, etc....

I just want to take my business to the next level =). I pay an average of $400-$700 per month on ebay and I am thinking if I create my own website, I will save alot $$$ in the long run and those fees I pay eBay will go into my pocket =)

Thanks so much in advance!

I personally use Dreamwearver to design my sites. I also use Flash studio 8 for the Flash in the site. Fireworks is a good program to use for logos.

Thanks Jimmy! I really appreciate the help. I will try to create my website. By the way, what do you think of sitesell.com?

[quote='steppingstones':426ab1af] No one seem interested in my items.



It's interesting that you say 'no-one seems interested in my items'. The first three rules of selling on eBay are: 1 Research 2 Research 3 Research.
You need to know what people are buying before you ever list something. If you're just selling odds and ends from round your house, it's okay to just go ahead and list - nothing lost if it doesn't sell. However, if you're buying items in bulk to sell on eBay it's not enough to just buy a hundred pink striped gizmos because you got them at a great price. You need to first research to see if people actually want pink striped gizmos. One way of doing this is to search the expired listings to see how many have sold recently and what prices these items have sold for in the past. Another is to go to eBays wanted section to see if people are looking for it. There is also a good research tool right here on salehoo. Good luck and don't give up, but do your homework.

Dropshipping is dead on ebay, if you are keep on drop shipping, do it through cragislist and other free classified ads sites.

Yeah, I also started with dropshipping and it did'nt go over so well. Next I moved to just bidding on popluar items through ebay but going through Link hidden: Login to view. This helped to reduce my bottom cost when shopping on ebay. Then I just turned around and sold it on ecrater, free market palce.

This worked a little better buy Im still starting out and somewhat limited on how much I can buy. This is turning a corner though.

Also Ive been spending some time on Affiliate marketing programs with ebay and such.

. This helped to reduce my bottom cost when shopping on ebay. Then I just turned around and sold it on ecrater, free market palce.

This worked a little better buy Im still starting out and somewhat limited on how much I can buy. This is turning a corner though.

Also Ive been spending some time on Affiliate marketing programs with ebay and such.

Thanks for the tips. I'm also new in this business and it's always nice to get tips like these.

I've heard too many bad things about drop shipping and I am not going to touch it.

Big Crumbs looks good and ecrater looks awesome. I am going to sign up with ecrater and see if I can sell some of the stuff I got from JImmy there.

I don't agree with the logic of 'don't go with electronics, handbags etc' in fact....I think you should go with whatever you want.

If you want to sell it, sell it. Basically I never paid a dime to setup my online store and I know the headache you got with possibly creating yours somewhere or whatever else.

But I know there are many ways around that too. Here's the deal, if you got it setup real nice. You need visitors, traffic, and lots and lots of visitors.

Targeted visitors. I know how that works and have my science mastered. But I can't teach too many as that eats into people's profits. But the fact is, I bring traffic through my store like a freight train on auto pilot. Then I sell, and I either close the sale or I don't.

My only work spent is just massively generating traffic, sometimes even when I'm outside or watching a video. I let it all come and smother the place, then I take care of the rest, and move on.

You know what? Join a safelist. There's thousands. Its easy to get your product in front of people- then what you have to do, is get the right marketing message in front of them. Then put it in front of another 3000 people, and eventually, everything in your store is gone & instantly the magic repeats.

what is a safelist?

Hi the$rich$tree,

A safelist is a mailing list or email list of people who opt-in to receive advertising emails from each other. It is a web advertising tool used to promote trades and businesses. This is not considered as spam as all members of the list agree to receive emails from the other members. The good thing about it is you can advertise to numerous audiences via email without having to resort to spam.

More about safelists on this article, check it out:

Link hidden: Login to view

All the best!