Why am I so scared to sell on auctions?


moonlightdesirez
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1 Jun 08 06:59:41 am
I don't know why, but I have THE product I want to sell on ebay or other auctions, but I am terrified of selling on auctions and I don't know exactly why. I'm afraid of not having a good enough 'ME' page, a stunning sales page, and more. I can't pinpoint anything exact. :oops: :?

Has anyone else had or have this problem also? I run 2 online websites and that doesn't scare me, I know I can fix the problems. Once you hit that sell button or whatever, you can't change things can you? If you do doesn't it show up that it's been revised? :?: :?

Somebody help me PLEAAAAAAASSSSSSE! :cry: :oops:

Thanks in advance!


wholesalelist101
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1 Jun 08 09:42:15 am
It's no better way to get over your fears than to just do it. I would just start out with something small to get a feel for things. There are also a ton of ebooks out there about how to sell on eBay. Good Luck!


bayericlowe
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1 Jun 08 10:48:42 am
Don't be scared, be carefully cautious when selling on auctions. eBay isn't the best resource when selling on auctions. eBay isn't the best place to start but it is a place. The best place to start would be Link hidden: Login to view and Amazon.

Amazon moves fast and you just pick the hot-selling items then stock them in your store. Send the products to Amazon directly if you want them to ship it for you. If not just use blind dropshipping.

Clickbank is another excellent resource for selling online. When you dropshiip you're basically selling another's products for them anyhow, and taking a cut of the profits for you. You're selling the wholesale goods directly for them. That's why its nearly the same as affiliate marketing, you just have to finish filling the order though.

Why you should be cautious is pretty much regardless of where you sell at one time or another, Vero is going to scrutinize it. If you're not selling brands probably nothing will happen. But if you do sell brand names or designer goods, expect to be put under a microscope.

There's a number of things Vero can do to you. They're called the Verified Rights Owner Association. Since they are the original patent holders for most products, they can shut down your listings. They can certainly order Google Adwords to delete your ads and make the official claim piracy. They can prosecute you and seize everything you own, attack you with threatening letters, and fine you extra-ordinarily high sums of money.

The Vero group essentially consists of all the major corporations. Sony, Nintendo, Samsung, Rolex, Gucci, DeBeers, Tiffany, Chanel, Exxon Mobil, Louis Vutton, Square-Enix, Columbia, Paramount, MGM, Nokia, Coach, Abercrombie & Fitch, Tower Records, Apple, Compaq, Microsoft, Bungie, Tommy Hilfiger, Victorias Secret, Maybelline, JVC, Direct TV, Toshiba, AT&T, Verizon etc etc...

Essentially, all the major brand names in the world have joined and become a part of V.E.R.O. Their mission with their million dollar legal teams, expensive cars and thirty-something bigshots is to eliminate piracy and fight global piracy.

That all seems simple enough. But what they don't tell to you at least is that their definition of 'Piracy' is extremely broad. Vero's definition of piracy is anything which could be seen or shown to be infringing on the rights of the patent copyright holder, which is them. It means that anything Design Inspired, any Designer Brands you sell, or anything they don't like being related to their brand-- even if its just a replica or came from their factory overseas- is piracy.

This simplifies it a little too much however. There are all sorts of extraordinary definitions that have been enforced. Essentially if they see something released from a warehouse they own overseas and you're selling it, they can flash a piece of paper and have your listings yanked down and your store held responsible. Anything which aspires meaning to or is related to a brand is fair game.

There is no currently known solution besides not selling designer brands. You can file a complaint with the FTC, but it takes months to get a hearing. The Vero association wants to pass a law that ascribes a tax to every item that is sold, distributed or passed off online or offline. It wants a business to consumer direct operating model enforced everywhere possible.
You might consider voting for Obama if you really want to make a difference in this crucial area. Obama wants to repeal the NAFTA trade law which exported most manufacturing jobs overseas. He wants to repeal the consumer tax and will never allow V.E.R.O to pass their own business-consumer spending tax. His stance on trade is the opposite of most others. Alot of the cheap jobs in China or India are unregulated. Sure they offer great products. But nobody is watching them or solving this crisis so they get back to the US. He said that he would endorse a new form of free trade and legislation for ecommerce that would give back jobs and create high demand for consumer products. It would replace NAFTA. I consider NAFTA to be a total failure & adds to alot of the mess we're in now.

Good luck with the auction. Just remember start low, offer specialty discounts and gifts & go high!!!! I sell items regularly off my online store but usually through Craigslist, Amazon or ioffer.


truckenbaldy
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1 Jun 08 01:20:19 pm
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Hi there, yes I know just how you are feeling, I've had the product for about 2 weeks and was petrified about selling it (yeah I know dumb)... so I started selling with some of my dear beloved books (I'm gonna miss them as most have been selling) that gave me confidence in selling my product this week.. and yay they have been bid on (hmmm so ok one is going for $2.25 and the other is going for $0.99) hey it's early days and I have confidence they are going to reach at least what I want for them :)

If you can run websites you can do anything...I just have to learn how to make a website hahaa... I will learn though :D

Good luck with your auctions

Regards Lynda


timg311918
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1 Jun 08 05:33:05 pm
Bayericlowe I agree with you. Vero has come to the point of being rediculous. 99% of anything sold online is made by a trademarked company and could be removed on any auctions sites or websites for infringing on their rights. It isn't even piracy anymore..Vero companies are using these vague set of standards to push off anyone selling their items, real or not. It's highly illegal as they are directly going against the buyers right to sell after ownership, but like everyone is saying...who has the money or time to go against their highly bankrolled legal teams?


jimmy_huber
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1 Jun 08 07:42:02 pm
Its never easy to get started on ebay. Many sellers fail about 90% to be exact. A very high amount of sellers give up within the first year. Mostly due to high fees and unexpected costs of running a business.
I myself even come into trouble with the unexpected and my company will probably do well over a half a million in online sales by distributing over 11 Million in Below wholesale Products to Ebay sellers in the next 12 months if things go well.

The best advice I can give you is to start very small. Sell household items until you get a feel for things. Experiment with your Me page using a Html Editor Like frontpage or dreamweaver.

If your starting on ebay try selling personal items. If you selling items of value put them as buy it now items or put them on places like Amazon where there is no bidding on items. Amazon is an excellent resource especially if you have brand new items. It may take you longer to sell items on Amazon. But if you have a large amount of items on Amazon you will get good sales. 2 or 3 items may take you a while to sell if your only selling a couple items.

Above all RESEARCH IS THE KEY.
Study your product, study your competition, research prices on each selling venue. And experiment with what you have learned.

Many people mock me when I say you must research saying they have researched alot but this is a never ending task. I spend at least 2-3 hours a day on research. Even with my business being as busy as it is I have to research constantly to stay up with my own companies growth.

Every company is hard. We started the First Salehoo investment Group with about 30 Members about 8 months ago. We moved from Ebay and formed ***deleted by moderator***. Its just now starting to see some very strong growth. We basically started a New company by scratch using an existing Ebay Company and Turning it into a Distribution company. And that was after loosing several thousand dollars close to $16,000 in losses. Now were back on track and seeing some strong growth. Its never easy but if your determined you can make it. Research saved our company so never count out research.

I would also recommend you put some money into getting a membership with Link hidden: Login to view It has everything you will need all in one place. Its not just a valueable resource for small business. Many large businesses are finding the information in that site very valuable.


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moonlightdesirez
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3 Jun 08 07:11:54 am
First I want to thank EVERYONE who replied. WoW, Salehoo members are amazing!! :mrgreen:

I need help on ebay's 'ME' or 'About ME' page please, I need it to be dynamic....and I have limited resources. I tried on FrontPage - that was a serious NO GO- hehe. :!: :!:

Also, I've checked into some of the auctions some of you mentioned...a couple of them look interesting, I guess not as intimidating?? Is that what's wrong with me being so scared? :?

And bayericlowe, thank you so much for all that information, it will take a few to soak it all in. :lol:

I know I'm going to start small, but I'm really looking into dropshipping. I think I can find small stuff at certain dropshippers. Does anyone have a list? That's free?

Again, you're all WONDERFUL and I really appreciate all the support. I need to take a plunge sometime really soon. As soon as I find the right auction site that doesn't scare me. :lol:

Kristi


moonlightdesirez
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3 Jun 08 07:17:32 am
One more question, how exactly does Amazon auctions work? I tried looking and all I got were ebooks or regular books. That won't help me now. Plus I'm not spending $30 on a book that tells me how to sell on Amazon hehe

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Kristi


designerthriftshop
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3 Jun 08 12:36:06 pm
Hi Kristi. Amazon is very easy. There are 2 different kind of subscriptions. First is what they call a Pro Merchant. It's basically $40/month & you can list whatever you want by making individual listings. The second is just a regular subscription where you can list the EXACT SAME ITEM someone else is selling for free. For example, if you have a Black & Decker coffee maker that's EXACTLY like the one you're looking at on Amazon there will be a 'sell yours now' button inside the listing.

The good thing about Amazon is that money goes directly in to your bank account. Plus there is no haggling over price & shipping amount. You control all those costs. And I think people trust Amazon too!

I've had some decent luck with Amazon so try it & see what you think.

Lisa


moonlightdesirez
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5 Jun 08 02:16:38 pm
Thank you Lisa, I really appreciate your reply. I will try Amazon, it doesn't scare me as much as eBay does and I don't know why.


designerthriftshop
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5 Jun 08 07:06:41 pm
You're very welcome & good luck! I think VERO has some doings with Amazon too but I am not 100% sure of that.


planes
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6 Jun 08 08:17:05 pm
First I want to thank EVERYONE who replied. WoW, Salehoo members are amazing!! :mrgreen:

I need help on ebay's 'ME' or 'About ME' page please, I need it to be dynamic....and I have limited resources. I tried on FrontPage - that was a serious NO GO- hehe. :!: :!:

Also, I've checked into some of the auctions some of you mentioned...a couple of them look interesting, I guess not as intimidating?? Is that what's wrong with me being so scared? :?

And bayericlowe, thank you so much for all that information, it will take a few to soak it all in. :lol:

I know I'm going to start small, but I'm really looking into dropshipping. I think I can find small stuff at certain dropshippers. Does anyone have a list? That's free?

Again, you're all WONDERFUL and I really appreciate all the support. I need to take a plunge sometime really soon. As soon as I find the right auction site that doesn't scare me. :lol:

Kristi



You seem to be worried about the 'About me page' I have never used it. Though I am sure it would be a good thing, I just never wrote anything on it.

Don't worry so much about making sure every little thing is in place.
As far as making your listing look nice, use Auctiva. Its a great way to save your listings off line in case of problems and they have some nice templates to spruce up the listings.

As far as Vero is concerned, don't worry about it. I have listed about a thousand items and had just one taken down because it was a used copy of windows 95. eBay no likey used OS software.

If your listing designer clothing take close-up pictures of the tag and stitching.
Also state that you are willing to show receipts for the new items to any Trademark holder. If the item is pre-owned then your not likely to run into any trouble. But still take closeup pics of the label and stitching. Make a little paragragh at the end of the listing stating the above.


jimmy_huber
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7 Jun 08 06:20:43 am
You dont have to have a fancy About me page to succeed. Your auction page is what will really sell your item.Your me page can have anything. You can even just put a little contact info on it or a little bit about yourself or your company. Nothing Special. I just use it to push people from ebay to my website.


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moonlightdesirez
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8 Jun 08 10:41:24 am
I really appreciate these replies. You have NO idea. I'm gearing toward Auctiva right now. The only reason is, the fees. I don't have anything personal to sell, I'm dealing with dropshippers. Now, before anyone gets all critical on me...I do own a website (the supplier suggests I push my items to ebay, how odd), and I use a dropshipper that I truly like. The problem is, they don't have what I want to sell on eBay. Again, is that odd? My shopcart people are like my best friends. They have written many things over the years plus they help me all the time if I can't figure something out. All that w/o any charges, but what he did tell me, I'm a Perfectionist over the tiny things. (I think like the eBay About Me page) It's driving me nuts that I can't get a good About Me page going, that will drive customers to my website and to my ebay items....does that make sense?

I've found my niche - it's just a matter of finding somebody that can distribute/supply it. I've done my research, I did it before I joined Salehoo also :P

Ok, please keep the replies coming, you are really giving me strength here.

Thanks,
M


jimmy_huber
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8 Jun 08 05:17:26 pm
Hey if you have your own website I would suggest you get a merchant account with a shopping cart you can redirect your ebay shoppers right to your website when your done. You can do this using companys like Firstdata.com

They refer you to securenetshop.com for a shopping cart that even works with ebay.


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moonlightdesirez
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14 Jun 08 06:56:04 pm
I thought that was an option from Paypal anyway. To redirect them to my website.


 

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