7 Steps to easily build an eBay business up to Powerseller level with no stock and no money!
This is a simple trick to get to Bronze Powerseller level and beyond, while not spending any of your own money or holding lots of stock. It's not dropshipping, not MLM, not digital products, It's real stock that you get and ship yourself!
This is a technique that I use successfully on various eBay accounts and is based on the concept of people sticking to what they know. By this I mean that people who shop on ebay tend to stick with eBay. People who shop on Amazon tend to stick with Amazon and so on.
You can use this to your advantage to build a solid and legitimate arbitrage business by buying from one site and selling on another for a profit.
You might think that this is pretty obvious and a lot of people are doing it. You might also think that you need to buy products before selling them on. You might also be wondering why people don't hunt around the internet for the cheapest prices. Not so!
Here's why:
As a generalisation, people who buy on their favourite website, stick with their favourite website. They don't tend to shop around to find better deals. It's rather like going to your favourite Supermarket for your weekly shop, knowing that goods are probably cheaper at another Supermarket that you don't like going to! With this in mind, you can confidently list items for sale at a higher price than on other sites.
A popular view is that eBay is cheap. Not neccessarily so... Check the final prices of finished sales. Here's some iPhones. As you can see, in many, many cases the final price isn't particularly cheap. Ebay has moved on from "attic clearance" sellers and now embraces major High Street and multi-national companies - with prices to match.
With all that in mind, here's what to do:
1. Search for the website that has the cheapest products that you want to sell. I'll use Amazon, but it could be any other site.
2. Sign up to their affiliate program so you can use your own affiliate link to go to Amazon to buy products.
3. Find an eBay fees calculator on your favourite Internet search engine. Work out a price that you can sell the product for to make the amount of profit that you want.
4. List the products on eBay. That's right! List before you buy, so you don't have to spend any of your own money upfront.
5. Whenever you sell an item, wait for payment, then go to Amazon via your affiliate link to buy the products.
6. When the item arrives, repack it and send it to your buyer.
7. Repeat!
That's it. Very simple.
Tips and explanations:
Buying through your affiliate link will earn you commissions that you can offset against your ebay listing fees. It may not fully pay your eBay listing fees, but will certainly pay off a big chunk. Check the terms of affiliate companies. A few companies don't allow you to buy products for yourself to earn commission. Amazon is supposedly one of these companies, but I've never had a problem and have always received my affiliate earnings.
If you buy from Amazon, pay their yearly fee for free next day delivery. An item can be bought and sent to your customer within two or three days. The yearly fee will pay for itself withing days. Always state in your listing a longer delivery time than it will actually be. If you say shipping within 10 days, the buyer will expect 10 days, so make sure you ship within 3 or 4 days. The customer will be pleased and may buy again from you - or at least leave great feedback!
Make sure that you sell below the RRP price, and always show the RRP price in your listings, and the savings the customer can make by buying from you.
Make sure that you repackage the item before sending it to your customer, so in effect, the product is coming from your business. Packaging materials can be found cheaply all over the internet. Don't forget to incorporate the cost into your expenses in the eBay fees calculator.
Treat it as a business. If possible, open an eBay shop and fill it with products. Create professional listings and register on eBay as a business. Disply your address, phone number and email address. Think of it as a real business and customers will see you as a real business.
Conform to eBay's and Distance selling regulations. Allow returns - you can return them yourself to get refunded.
You will always get people messaging to tell you that you're too expensive, some people have nothing better to do. Ignore them. For every one complainer you'll get 100 delighted customers!
You're selling at fixed price, but occassionally, sell with Auction format at a 1p start price. You'll get a surge of visitors, so make sure you have plenty of links to your eBay shop and fixed price listings. You'll probably make a loss or break even on the auction but you'll get lots more visitors, more bookmarks and more newsletter sign ups, so treat the loss as advertising expenses.
Occassionally, an item you listed will become out of stock at the website you want to buy from. Don't panic! Either shop around to find the next best price and buy from that site instead (sign up as an affiliate if they have a program), buy at a higher price and take a loss to keep your customer happy, or apologise profusely to your customer. You're a business, so tell them that the wholesaler has sent the wrong product, or you noticed some damage while you were packing it etc. Offer a full refund, or a small discount if they don't mind waiting for the wholesaler to send more out. Whatever you do - DO NOT keep the buyer in the dark. Communicate with them, keep them up to date, be friendly and it's very rarely a problem. You will always get buyers who would even find fault in a free product, it's a fact of business. If you encounter someone like this, do the best you can, blacklist them and move on.
Apply to ebay seller associations to add credibility to your business - www.acesellers.org is a good one and free to join.
Anything can be sold in this way, as long as you treat it like a business and look after your customers. Don't treat it as a get rich quick scheme - because it's not (Having said that, leading up to xmas 2008, Amazon had Designer watches for sale at a fraction of the RRP, complete with all the designer boxes and packaging. RRP £149.99, Amazon price £29.99, My price £69.99 - less than half the RRP - I sold a lot! In this sort of scenario, and to add credibility, include a link to your "about me" page in the listing, then have a link in your "about me" page to the Designer companies page for the same product. The product on the Designers website will be offered for sale at the RRP price). But it is a very simple way to make a regular income and create a long term eBay business with little or no money!
Don't forget to use the numerous eBay tools to promote yourself. The about me page, ebay guides, ebay articles, the ebay blog etc. I'm not going into any detail about promotion, there is a ton of information on the Internet and eBay itself.
Good Luck and here's to your success!
Resources:
Amazon UK
Amazon Affiliate Program
Ebay UK
Ebay Affiliate Program
PS, once you've mastered eBay you can of course apply the same techniques anywhere you like. For example, Buy on eBay, sell on Amazon. Buy on Play.com, sell on Bonanzle, etc etc etc. It's only limited by how much work you want to put in to it!
