The Value of Drop Shipping
By Stuart Lisonbee

Most retailers agree: drop shipping, if used properly, is a huge time and labor saver.

But is it a money saver as well? It is often said that time is money. But just what is the true value of drop shipping?

We will attempt to answer that question in this article from a scientific approach, using logic to come to a conclusion as to what the value of drop shipping is for you.

The value of time is different for everybody... Read More


Tapping Into Alternate Sales Venues

Internet retailing comprises more than eBay. Hard to believe, but true.
While the majority of our members attempt to sell on eBay as their exclusive outlet, our most successful members have their own Internet stores, some of which sell nothing on eBay or on other online auctions. This article explores several of these alternate sales venues, so you can fully exploit them to maximize your revenue opportunities.

Turning on the taps for multiple streams of income

You may have heard the term "multiple streams of income" thrown around by business gurus. The concept is simple: the more sources of income you are able to create, the better. Creating multiple income streams delivers two important benefits to your business:

Multiple streams of income protect you from total disaster if one or two of your streams dry up. Tapping into other markets often opens opportunities that are unavailable if you sell exclusively on eBay or some other online auction site
Read More


Product Research Basic Principles

Introduction

Of all the questions we receive here at Doba, the question of what to sell is far and away the most frequently asked. Many of our customers ask us to tell them exactly which products to sell. Though we may give an example here or there, we generally shy away from telling people exactly what products we think will sell well.

Why? Because what sells well is whatever is in high demand and low supply, and in retail, the supply and demand changes as often as the tides.
Instead of telling you which products to sell, we would rather empower you to discover products on your ownproducts that you can most effectively market. To achieve that goal, this tutorial presents four articles that reveal basic research principles and techniques:

This opening article, "Principles of Product Research," introduces the guiding principles of effective product research and selection.

"Online Auction Research" reveals techniques for finding products that may sell well on eBay and other online auctions.

"Website Research" presents techniques and tools for researching products to sell on your webstore.

"Alternate Sales Venues" suggests other sales venues to consider during your research.

Read More


Busting Common Drop Shipping Myths
By Stuart Lisonbee

Because the concept of drop shipping is relatively new, most people know little about it, so they fill in the gaps with rumors and conjecture, resulting in misinformation of mythical proportions. In this article, I reveal the 4 most common drop shipping myths, and then proceed to bust those myths.

Myth #1: Drop shipping means big money for little work
Sure drop shipping saves you from warehousing, inventorying, packaging, and shipping items, but those tasks play a relatively minor role in building a successful online retail business. You can now invest the time and resources you save on menial tasks in the retailer's labors of love:

Market research
Product research
Advertising
Customer service
Developing more efficient ways of doing business
Expansion
The truth is that even though drop shipping... Read More


Drop Ship Tips: Minimizing Backorders
By Stuart Lisonbee

Backorders can break the backs of online retailers. If you can't quickly deliver a product to your customer, they might just cancel their order and look for a more reliable webstore. Because drop shipping places inventory control in the hands of your supplier, it raises your exposure to the risk of backorders. You can, however, implement some strategies for minimizing your exposure to backorder situations:

Monitor Quantities on Hand (QOH)
Run shorter auctions
Cancel an auction when supplies run low
Pad your inventory by drop shipping items to yourself
In the following sections, I explain these strategies in greater detail... Read More


Online Auction Research: What's Hot? What's Not

A key factor in your success as a retail merchant is your ability to pick a product that's in high demand and then set a price that customers are willing to pay for that item. By employing savvy online research strategies, you can quickly determine what's hot, what's not, and the prices that people have actually paid for the products or similar products you're planning to sell.
In this article, you discover some cheap and easy research strategies that can help you select potentially profitable products and set prices that are inline with your market.

Remember: Never compete on price alone. This often causes a price war that drives down prices for all retailers, including you. Combine a reasonable price with effective marketing.

Checking the going rate on eBay

An important part of doing proper research on eBay is finding out what's selling and for how much. The simplest way to do this is... Read More


Use Drop Shipping to Expand into New Markets
By Stuart Lisonbee

For retail businesses, expanding into a new market can be a risky proposition. Aside from additional marketing costs, there are also the costs of storing new inventory that may or may not sell.

This is just one more situation where drop shipping can help save you time, money, and a lot of unwanted stress. Just like drop shipping is a low risk way to break into the retail business, it can also help your existing business get its feet wet in new markets.

Let's take a look at an imaginary online retailer that sells camping equipment. For years, this retailer has focused on specializing in tents and sleeping bags only. Now, to increase sales and profits, he wants to expand into more camping accessories such as cookware, backpacks, propane, emergency equipment, and so forth. The problem is, he's worried that he won't be able to... Read More


Drop Ship Tips: Drop Shipping Best Practices
By Stuart Lisonbee

In my article, "The Value of Drop Shipping," I sing the praises of drop shipping in helping you reduce costs both in time and money and more efficiently ship product. You can maximize the power of drop shipping by embracing the following four drop shipping best practices:

Choose your drop shipper wisely
Focus on margins as a dollar amount
Research products carefully
In the following sections, I explain each of these practices in greater detail.
Choose the Best Drop Shipper

With drop shipping you lose some control over inventory and shipping. To minimize the risk of being unable to fill a customer's order, choose a drop shipper who offers the following... Read More


Sailing the Ship of Uniqueness to the Shores of Success
By Stuart Lisonbee

Anyone with a little technical know-how and an Internet connection can open an online storefront and start peddling product, especially if the entrepreneur has access to Doba's powerful product sourcing and drop shipping tools. But peddling product at bargain basement prices won't ensure your success for three good reasons:

1. Major competitors can undercut your prices2. The lower your prices, the less you earn3. The less you earn, the less time and money you have to invest in improving your business. Search the Web for "sewing," and you'll find links to dozens of sites where you can purchase sewing supplies and equipment. When someone needs sewing supplies, they go to the store that offers the best prices, unless... Read More


Busting Common Wholesale Myths
By Stuart Lisonbee

By definition, "wholesale" is "the sale of commodities in quantity usually for resale by a retail merchant." Some misinformed merchants falsely conclude from that that access to wholesale pricing guarantees retail success.

In this article, I bust the two most common wholesale myths and reveal that only by focusing on the 4 P's of retailing can you build and expand a successful retail business.

Myth #1: Wholesale prices are at least 50% lower than retail
Busting this myth is child's play. Just take a look at these facts and figures from Wal-Mart the poster child for retail success... Read More


The Value of Drop Shipping: Slashing Costs
By Stuart Lisonbee

As an online merchant, you're well aware of how much time and money you spend preparing an item description and packaging and shipping products. By following the traditional auction model, you actually spend more in time and money to deliver less merchandise. With drop shipping, you can significantly increase productivity, slash costs, and boost your bottom line.

In this article, I demonstrate how you can incorporate drop shipping into your current online business to save 55 minutes on the following tasks:

Prepare the item description
Package and address the item
Ship the item
You also save money:
Your hourly rate for performing these tasks
Packaging materials
Shipping costs
Mileage to the post office
Let's do the math... Read More


Fraud ProtectionAvoiding Fraudulent Orders and Unscrupulous Customers

Introduction

In this article, you'll learn how to spot the signs of potentially fraudulent orders and protect yourself from unscrupulous consumers.

Currently, identity theft laws are anemic and law enforcement is often unwilling to pursue "minor" cases. Until the laws catch up and law enforcement begins to prosecute these cases more aggressively, online merchants are pretty much on their own.

Because of this, it pays to be informed about what you, as an online merchant, can do to protect yourself from credit card fraud and other deceptive activities.
As described in this tutorial, you can implement four proactive strategies to protect yourself and your business from fraud:

Prevention: Stop fraud by following fraud-prevention strategies.
Early detection: Watch for red flags that indicate possible fraud.
Investigation: When you notice suspicious activity, investigate.
Action: When you're relatively certain that fraud is occurring, contact someone who can do something about it.
Protect yourself

Customers typically pay for merchandise with credit cards, checks, money orders, or PayPal payments. In the following sections, we reveal several ways to identify and stop the most common payment scams.

Preventing credit card cons

Credit card con artists have numerous hi-tech and no-tech ways of obtaining credit card numbers... Read More


The Dirty DozenAvoiding the 12 Most Common Business Blunders

Introduction

Every single day, enthusiastic entrepreneurs start about 2,000 new small businesses. Three years from now, about 1,600 of those new businesses will have failed.

Being in the business of helping others break into the retail business, we've had a ringside seat to witness competitors battle it out retail arena, and we've identified the 12 differences that separate the champs from the chumps.
In this article, we reveal those differences and use our observations, experience, and expertise to steer you clear of the most common pitfalls and ensure that your business becomes part of the elite group of successful startups.

Poor management

People launch their own businesses for a variety of reasons. Some think it will be fun and easy. Others aren't happy with their current lifestyle and seek to better themselves financially. Still more look at their boss and think, "If he can do it, then I sure can!"

But the truth is that 80% of new businesses fail within the first three years. The number one reason small businesses fail is, by far, poor management.

Recognizing the essentials of good management

Good management boils down to developing a solid business plan and then effectively executing your plan or adjusting it to meet the needs of the current situation. Effectively managing a business, big or small, requires the following... Read More


Selling Benefits: Pitching to Your Customer's Needs
By Stuart Lisonbee

Focusing on the features of a product or service rather than how it benefits the consumer is considered by many marketing experts to be a mortal sin. Features merely tell the consumer what a product or service is or does. Benefits sell the product or service. Benefits convince prospective customers that your product can improve their lives. Let's look at a couple examples:

Product: Car engineFeature: Powerful 250 hp V6 engineBenefit: Climb hills without losing speed and irritating other drivers
Product: Video card Feature: The most powerful graphics processorBenefit: Never again get fragged by your friends due to low frame rates
These examples reveal the contrast between feature and benefit... Read More


Building Customer Loyalty with an eNewsletter
By Stuart Lisonbee

A well-designed eNewsletter, packed with valuable content and exclusive offers, can help you walk the fine line of keeping in touch with your customers without annoying them.

In this article, you learn:

How to design an attractive eNewsletter that increases your brand presence.
What to include in your eNewsletter and what to leave out.
How to encourage customers to subscribe without being pushy.
How to automate distribution to save valuable time.
Designing an attractive eNewsletter

Whenever you contact a customer, you have an opportunity to impress or disappoint, so you want your first attempt at an eNewsletter to be impressive. In any publication, your first impression hinges on... Read More


Ramping up for the Holiday Retail Season
By Stuart Lisonbee

For retail merchants, "'Tis the season to be jolly" translates into "'Tis the season to ramp up my marketing efforts." If you put it off till the end of October, you've already missed out on some prime holiday marketing opportunities.

While traditional retailers are busy stocking their shelves to meet increasing demands, take the opportunity to ramp up your marketing efforts. Because Doba and its cadre of drop ship suppliers take the worries of inventory off your plate, you can focus your full attention on your holiday season marketing campaigns.

In this timely article, we reveal tips and strategies to make the most of the holiday retail season.

Focus on your core offering

Even Santa has to make his rounds to find out what the kiddies want for Christmas. Find out what your customers want, push the items in your product line that are likely to sell most briskly, and by New Year's Day, you'll find yourself jollier than old Saint Nick.

But if you're thinking about unloading some of your... Read More


Cashing in on the Bump in Online Holiday Retail Sales
By Stuart Lisonbee

While online merchants aren't exactly bulldozing their brick-and-mortar counterparts into retail oblivion, they are managing to chip away some of the mortar between those bricks.

Roughly 75 percent of U.S. homes are now connected to the Internet, and in many of those homes, in the comfort of their living rooms, dens, and home offices, people are shopping online to avoid the traffic jams, high gas prices, and raging crowds. Increasingly, people are hopping on the information superhighway to buy the best products at the best prices through the convenience of online stores built by tech-savvy merchants like you.
While online sales still represent a small portion of consumer spending ($24 billion online versus $450 billion offline according to 2006 estimates) the numbers are increasing significantly. Experts predict that this year, 8 percent of all holiday sales will occur online. As an online retailer, the number one question you should be asking yourself is... Read More


Driving eBay Traffic to Your Webstore with a Newsletter
By Stuart Lisonbee

As I discuss in the article "Driving eBay Traffic to Your Webstore," eBay has several policies in place to discourage sellers from selling any of the products they're selling on eBay at off-eBay webstores. In that article, I offer two strategies for working around the policies to drive eBay traffic to your webstore. In this article, I reveal a third trick: encouraging eBay users to sign up for an email-distributed newsletter.

eBay Stores owners have access to a newsletter tool provided by eBay, but the eBay newsletter tool will do you little good, because you're not allowed to advertise your webstore (other than your eBay Store) in the eBay newsletter. This means that you'll need to use some other newsletter management company such as Constant Contact.

Writing an Effective Newsletter

When composing the content of your newsletter, lean toward the soft-sell approach. In addition to including a few subtle ads for featured products and services, strive to offer more to your customers than... Read More

Driving eBay Traffic to Your Webstore

By Stuart Lisonbee

Years ago you could use eBay to drive traffic to your webstore. Then eBay introduced policies that discouraged sellers from linking eBay listings to off-eBay sites, so customers couldn't leave eBay to purchase an item elsewhere. For eBay, it was a smart moveto make a profit, eBay needed customers to buy on eBay, so eBay could collect its final-value fees.

Despite eBay's policy changes, you can employ several strategies to drive eBay traffic to your webstore. I like to call it mining for traffic. Why drive traffic from eBay to your webstore? Three good reasons:

Higher profit margins: The average customer is willing to pay more for an item on your webstore than on eBay. By selling the items from your webstore, you can increase your markupsand your net profit.

Reduced competition: When a person searches for an item you sell on eBay, eBay returns a list of items from hundreds or even thousands of your competitors. By driving traffic to your webstore, you virtually eliminate the clamor of the competition.

Increased potential for repeat business: Developing long-term relationships with customers is the key to retail success. By steering customers to your webstore, you significantly improve your chances of building customer loyalty.
Now that you know why driving eBay traffic to your webstore is so beneficial, in the following sections I reveal some tips and tricks for doing just that... Read More

How to start an Ebay drop-shipping business for zero dollars out of pocket.

Is it possible to start a successful Ebay drop-shipping business for zero out of pocket? Yes, it is! The problem is that there are hundreds of supposed drop-shippers online and many so called "instant auction success kits" and all but two are useless. There are only two Ebay approved drop-shippers and joining either one is the first step to creating an Ebay work at home business drop-shipping business.

• For those who are unfamiliar with drop-shipping it works like this:
• You locate products to sell from a database of over 250,000 products.
• You can use tools through your drop-shipper that allow you to select products, set pricing and automatically send them to eBay.
• Your item sells on eBay and you receive payment through Paypal.
• You purchase the product from the drop-shipper using your Paypal funds. You pay the wholesale price and keep the profit.
• The drop-shipper will process and ship it to your customer. They will handle any returns, exchanges or problems or instruct you how to resolve the issue through the manufacturer when warranties apply.
• You will have tracking information on every order.
  

You can expect to spend at least a good week getting your business set up. The good news is that you will probably already have made a profit by day 5, and once you have set up all your products the business will pretty much run itself without a whole lot more effort on your part, but I am getting ahead of things. Let's start from square one, shall we?

To start your business you are going to need:

A Paypal account

An eBay account

A drop-shipper account

As we already said, there are many supposed drop-shippers out there that are nothing but a scam.

There are only two Ebay approved drop-shippers and only one drop-shipper is fully integrated with Ebay. Follow the links at the end of this article to explore them both and decide which is right for you. Both charge membership fees but the fee structures differ greatly.

If you choose to go with a free trial drop-shipping account then by the time you need to pay membership dues you will have easily earned more than enough money to cover your monthly dues.

Remember I told you it would cost $0 out of pocket? Here's how:

1)Sign up for the free 7 day trial

2)Make a real effort to get things started

3)Call customer service or contact live chat on the fourth or fifth day of your trial. Let them know how hard you have been working and that you very much would like to extend your trial period so your auctions have time to run their coarse, you can get a better feel for the system, etc.... I was able to get my trial period extended to a full month by taking this approach. Take the time to ask them any and every question you have since you are on the phone anyway! The customer service reps are amazing and it is well worth taking advantage of their expertise.

4)Work your butt off during the trial period and you will easily earn the few bucks your membership will cost you and more. Then you can pay your membership with your earning and thus have a $0 start up. In fact in my first two weeks I earned enough to pay for a one year membership at a huge discount which leads me to step 5....

5)When you have convinced yourself how wonderful your new business is and you are ready to pay your membership dues DON'T!!! Don't do a thing until you call the customer service department back and ask to speak with someone in the promotions department. They will be offer you HUGE discounts on your membership and they will usually throw in free tools as well.

Before you go any further you need to take some time getting familiar with Ebay, Paypal and your drop-shipper. Explore each site carefully. Read about Ebay's fees (you will not have to pay any fees up front to use Ebay but you will need to understand the fee structure to price your items properly). Get extremely comfortable with the tools and products offered by your drop-shipper. If you run into any questions or problems along the way contact the customer support for the site you have issues with and they will be glad to assist you. It will be much easier for you to follow the rest of this article series if you have a basic understanding of your new accounts first.

Now that you have a feel for the tools you will be using there are five more areas we need to cover in detail to make sure you are off to a solid start. In my upcoming articels we will look at:

Product Selection-You have instant access to over 250,000 products to pick from. Find out how to determine which products to sell.

Product Pricing-How to set prices that will earn you the best conversions.

Traffic-There are over 60 million Ebayers out there. Learn how to drive them to your listings.

Things to Avoid-Find out the most common mistakes newbies make.

Advanced Tools-Reviews of some of the best tools available to expand your business when you are ready.

Here are the links for the only two Ebay approved dropshippers.

Is Drop-shipping a real business or just another work at home scam?

If you have been researching work at home job opportunities than no doubt you have come across drop-shipping. You have probably seen a hundred ads trying to sell you an E-book that will tell you all the secrets to eBay or been tempted by a "free" instant auction success kit of some kind, right? If you have been unfortunate enough to become a victim of any of these scams then you may have dismissed eBay and drop-shipping as a legitimate business. Don't give up just yet! Motivated individuals can build a successful eBay drop-shipping business with zero dollars out of pocket. But How?

There are several factors crucial to your success as a drop-shipper. First and most importantly you must choose a drop-shipper that is approved by eBay and there are only TWO. Once you have selected your drop-shipper you need to select products to sell. Avoid selling products that are already highly saturated on eBay. For example, everyone and their brother is selling MP3 players at the moment so your chances of getting sales is much lower than if you target a less crowded market like belt buckles. Try and build an inventory of related products so you can pick up extra sales from your customers. If you sell computers and a customer decides to purchase a desktop unit from you he may also purchase a printer or other accessories if you have them in stock.
Pricing is always a sticky area for beginners. The number one mistake new drop-shippers and eBay users make is forgetting to factor in the fees when listing their items. For example....you can get a hunting knife from your drop-shipper for $70 plus $4 shipping for a total of $74. You decide to list it on Ebay for $80 for $6 profit...right? WRONG! There are fees for accepting Paypal payments for your auction, their are listing fees and there are eBay's final value fees. In this example you would have actually lost between $2 and $5 depending on your listing format. There is a very simple formula to avoid this problem an insure you always make a profit. If you are interested in the more detailed aspects of product pricing visit my in depth free guide.

Once you have your business model established how do you drive customers to your products? If you are using ebay than you are already way ahead of the game. Ebay has over 60 million users and you can easily drive them to your products through a variety of tools already available to you right on ebay! There are tools to enhance your auctions such as listing designer, bold and highlight options and gallery photo options. There are also ways to expand your business and lower your listing fees by opening an ebay Store. The serious entrepreneur should spend some time utilizing ebay's many message boards, FAQ pages and live help options to explore these and many other tools in depth.
I explore these factors and more in my free complete set up guide for new drop-shippers which can be viewed by following the link below. My guide is intended as a tool for serious individuals who are dedicated to their success. There are no E-books or software to buy, and no sales pitch.

Jordan Milton has over ten years experience as a professional writer and reviewer. You can access her free in depth analysis of how to build a successful eBay dropshipping business with zero dollars out of pocket including reviews of the only two Ebay approved dropshippers at:

http://idiotsrevenge.tripod.com