REMEMBER WHEN eBay USED TO BE A GREAT PLACE FOR SMALL SELLERS TO BECOME BIG SELLERS?
Unfortunately, recent changes at eBay have made online auctions less reliable and profitable. So where can you sell when you can’t sell on eBay? Online auctions are the past; fixed-price selling is the future. It’s time to move beyond eBay and first-generation online selling and start Selling Online 2.0. Second generation online selling means migrating from eBay to other online marketplaces, including craigslist, Amazon, and your own e-commerce website. You’ll need to make some new plans, learn some new skills, and change some of the things you do--but you’ll find that there’s more money to be made on your own than relying on traditional eBay online auction sales.
- Put together a plan to maintain your sales level and profitability--to counteract eBay’s changes
- Discover how to shift from auction sales to fixed-priced listings on the eBay marketplace
- Find out if running an eBay Store or selling on Half.com makes sense for your business
- Learn out how to sell locally on craigslist and other online classifieds sites
- Discover how to sell fixed-price merchandise on the Amazon marketplace
- Find out how to launch your own e-commerce website--and promote your online store
- Learn how to sell products across multiple channels--and manage multichannel conflicts
Introduction 1
What’s in This Book 2
Who Can Use This Book 3
How to Use This Book 3
There’s More Online... 4
Making the Move 4
I BEYOND ONLINE AUCTIONS: CREATING A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE BUSINESS 5
1 The Problem with Online Auctions 7
What eBay Used to Be Like... 7
Why Is eBay Abandoning Smaller Sellers? 10
Changes Are Afoot--and You Probably Won’t Like Them 12
Emphasizing Fixed-Price Sales over Auction Sales 12
Changes to the Fee Structure 12
Changes to the Payment System 14
Changes to the Feedback System 15
Changes to Search Results 15
eBay’s Deal with Buy.com 16
How Do eBay’s Changes Affect You? 16
2 Planning for Selling Success 19
Planning for Life Beyond eBay Auctions 19
Asking--and Answering--Key Questions 20
What Type of Merchandise Do You Want to Sell? 20
How Much Money Do You Want to Make? 21
How Do You Intend to Manage Your Business? 23
Where Do You Want to Sell? 25
Conceiving a Business Plan 26
Understanding the Components of a Useful Business Plan 28
Mission 29
Opportunity 30
Strategy 30
Organization and Operations 31
Strengths and Weaknesses 31
Financials 31
Writing Your Business Plan 32
Implementing Your Business Plan 33
II FIXED-PRICE SELLING ON EBAY 35
3 Migrating to Fixed-Price Listings 37
Why Fixed-Priced Sales Are the Way to Go 37
Comparing Fees 38
Comparing Listing Lengths 40
Factoring in Customer Demand 41
Different Ways to Sell at a Fixed Pric 42
Understanding eBay’s Fixed-Price Listings 43
Understanding eBay’s Buy It Now Auctions 44
Understanding eBay Stores 46
Understanding Half.com 47
Creating an eBay Fixed-Price Listing 50
Creating an Auction Listing with a Buy It Now Price 51
Managing Fixed-Price Sales 52
Before the Sale: Setting the Price 53
After the Sale: Payment and Shipping 53
4 Fixed-Price Selling in an eBay Store 57
What Is an eBay Store? 57
Benefits of Opening Your Own eBay Store 59
Challenges of eBay Store Selling 60
Understanding eBay Store Subscription Levels 61
Understanding Insertion Fees and FVFs 63
How to Open an eBay Store 63
Further Customizing Your eBay Store 67
Managing Your eBay Store 68
Listing Merchandise for Sale in Your eBay Store 70
Handling eBay Store Sales 71
Marking Down Your Merchandise 72
Viewing eBay Store Reports 73
5 Fixed-Price Selling on Half.com 77
Getting to Know Half.com 77
Understanding the Half.com Shopping Experience 79
Understanding Half.com Fees 80
Listing on Half.com 81
Pricing Your Half.com Items 83
Calculating Shipping and Handling Charges 84
Managing Half.com Sales 85
6 Promoting Your Fixed-Price eBay Sales 87
Promoting Your Fixed-Price Listings on the eBay Site 87
Optimizing Your Listings for eBay Search 88
Linking from Other Sites to Your eBay Listings 90
Promoting Your eBay Store 90
Seeding Listings into the Traditional eBay Marketplace 91
Enabling Cross-Promotions 91
Creating an Email Mailing List 92
Linking to Your eBay Store 94
Adding a Stores Widget to Your Blog or Website 95
Creating a Listing Feed 95
Exporting Your Listings to Search Engines and Shopping Sites 96
Advertising on the eBay Site with AdCommerce 97
Advertising Across the Web with Google AdWords 99
Promoting Your Store in the Real World 101
Promoting Your Half.com Listings 102
III SELLING VIA CRAIGSLIST ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS 105
7 Online Classifieds: Are They Right for Your Business? 107
Understanding Online Classifieds 107
Examining Major Online Classifieds Sites 110
craigslist 110
Oodle 111
Kijiji 113
backpage.com 114
LiveDea 115
Google Base 116
The Pros and Cons of Selling via Online Classifieds 117
Pros of Online Classifieds Selling 117
Cons of Online Classifieds Selling 118
Do Online Classifieds Make Sense for Your Business? 120
The Best Businesses for Migrating to Online Classifieds 120
The Worst Businesses for Migrating to Online Classifieds 121
8 Doing Business on craigslist 125
Understanding craigslist 125
Navigating craigslist Listings 126
Before You List... 129
Listing an Item for Sale 130
Formatting Your Item Description 133
Using HTML Formatting 133
Inserting Images into Your Listings 134
Managing Your Listings 135
Editing a Listing 135
Deleting a Listing 136
Making a Sale 136
9 Migrating from Online Auctions to Online Classifieds 139
What Items Should You Move to craigslist? 139
Changing Your Business Model 141
Going Local 141
Pickups,No Shipping 142
Cash Is King 143
We Don’t Need No Stinking Tools 143
It’s the Wild West 144
Businesses Aren’t Always Accepted 144
Making the Move 145
10 Promoting Your craigslist Business 147
Choosing the Right Community and Category 147
Optimizing Your Listings for Search 148
Keeping Your Ad at the Top of the List 148
IV SELLING ON THE AMAZON MARKETPLACE 151
11 The Amazon Marketplace: Is It Right for Your Business? 153
Understanding the Amazon Marketplace 153
What the Buyers See 154
The Many Ways to Sell on Amazon 156
Selling Individual Items on the Amazon Marketplace 157
Understanding the Amazon Marketplace 158
Understanding Amazon’s Fees 159
Selling as a Pro Merchant 161
Selling on Amazon via Selling on Amazon 162
Selling in an Amazon WebStore 163
Using Amazon to Fulfill Your Orders 163
How It Works 164
Understanding Fulfillment Pricing 164
The Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon 166
Selling on Amazon: Pros 166
Selling on Amazon: Cons 167
12 Doing Business in the Amazon Marketplace 169
Listing Individual Items in the Amazon Marketplace 169
Listing Your First Item 69
Managing Your Account and Inventory 173
Selling an Item 175
Setting Up Your Amazon Storefront 176
Moving to the Pro Merchant Program 177
Upgrading to Pro Merchant Status 177
Uploading Multiple Listings 178
Creating a Product Detail Page 180
13 Migrating Your eBay Business to Amazon 185
Does Migrating to Amazon Make Sense? 85
Comparing Fees 185
Comparing Sales and Effort 187
Which Items Should You Migrate? 188
Evolving Your Business Model 189
Making the Move 190
14 Promoting Your Amazon Business 193
Keeping Your Listings Competitive 193
Competing on Feedback 194
Placing Product Ads on the Amazon Site 196
Advertising Your Business with a Display Ad 197
V SELLING ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE 201
15 Establishing Your Own Website: Is It Right for Your Business? 203
Building an Online Store--What’s Involved? 203
The Components of an E-Commerce Website 203
Different Ways to Build a Store 206
How Much Does It Cost? 207
Pros and Cons of Running Your Own Website 208
Pros of Running Your Own Online Store 208
Cons of Running Your Own Online Store 209
Does an Online Store Make Sense for Your Business? 211
16 Planning Your Online Presence 215
Step One: Create Your Plan and Define Your Goals 215
Step Two:Determine What You’re Selling 216
Step Three: Choose a Hosting Service 216
Step Four: Build Your Website 217
Step Five: Choose an Online Payment Service 218
Step Six: Plan Your Promotion 219
Step Seven: Launch Your Site 220
Step Eight: Evaluate Your Performance 221
17 Setting Up an E-Commerce Website 223
Choosing a Hosting Service 223
Features to Look For 224
Comparing Prices 226
Using eBay ProStores 227
ProStores for eBay Sellers 227
Subscription Levels 228
Getting Started with ProStores 229
Building an Amazon WebStore Store 230
Inside an Amazon WebStore Store 230
Creating Your Own WebStore 231
Building a Yahoo! Merchant Website 233
Subscription Levels 233
Unique Features 234
Creating Your Own Yahoo! Store 235
Exploring Other Pre-Designed Storefronts 236
18 Managing Online Sales 241
Managing Your Inventory 241
Managing Your Sales 243
Managing Your Customers 245
19 Choosing an Online Payment System 249
Accepting Payments with PayPal 249
Pros and Cons of PayPal 250
Signing Up for PayPal 251
Understanding PayPal Fees 252
Adding PayPal to Your Website 253
Collecting PayPal Payments 254
Accepting Payments with Google Checkout 255
Pros and Cons of Google Checkout 255
Understanding Google Checkout Fees 256
Setting Up a Google Checkout Account 257
Choosing a Google Checkout Service 257
Adding Google Checkout to Your Website 258
Collecting Google Checkout Payments 259
Withdrawing Google Checkout Funds 260
Integrating Google Checkout with Google AdWords 260
Accepting Payments with Checkout by Amazon 261
Pros and Cons of Checkout by Amazon 261
Understanding Checkout by Amazon Fees 262
Setting Up Checkout by Amazon 262
Establishing Your Own Merchant Credit Card Account 263
Pros and Cons of a Merchant Account 264
Choosing a Credit Card Processor 265
20 Promoting Your E-Commerce Website 267
Putting Together a Marketing Plan 267
Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines 269
All About Search Engine Marketing--and SEO 269
SEO Tip #1: Fine-Tune Your Keywords 269
SEO Tip #2: Tweak Your <META> and <TITLE> Tags 271
SEO Tip #3: Solicit Inbound Links from Other Sites 271
SEO Tip #4: Submit Your Site to the Major Search Engines 272
SEO Tip #5: Use Text Instead of Images 274
Submitting Your Products to Comparison Shopping Sites 275
How Comparison Shopping Sites Work 275
Examining the Major Comparison Shopping Sites 276
Submitting Your Listings to Comparison Shopping Sites 278
Creating and Uploading a Data File 279
Buying PPC Advertising 280
How Important Is PPC Advertising? 280
Purchasing Keywords 281
Paying by the Click 282
Evaluating the Big PPC Ad Networks 283
Creating a PPC Campaign 285
Buying Display Ads 286
Engaging in Email Marketing 287
Marketing on YouTube 288
Marketing to the Blogosphere 289
Conducting Online Public Relations 290
21 Migrating Your eBay Business to Your Own Website 293
Does Migrating to Your Own Online Store Make Sense? 293
Comparing Costs 293
Comparing Effort 295
Which Items Should You Migrate? 295
Changing Your Business Model and Processes 296
Making the Move 297
22 Selling in Multiple Channels 301
What Is Multichannel Selling--and How Does It Work? 301
Pros and Cons of Multichannel Selling 302
Benefits of Multichannel Selling 302
Drawbacks of Multichannel Selling 303
When Does Multichannel Selling Make Sense--and When Is It a Recipe for Disaster? 305
Managing Inventory Across Channels 306
Creating a Multichannel Marketing Plan 307
Index 311
