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How You Can Have An Endless Supply Of Products!

What is it that you sell on eBay? Are you still selling items from around the house or have you graduated your hobby into more of an online business venture? Either way, one of the most frequently asked questions from eBayer's is "Where can I find more products to sell"? Have you ever asked yourself that question?

There are many solutions to this question - and in this newsletter issue I'd like you to consider this...What if you could have products come to you like water flowing downstream?

An eBay “drop- off store” does just that. What is an eBay Drop Off store? Perhaps you've seen them spring up in your town...an eBay drop-off store provides a place where people with things to sell can drop them off and pay you a fee and/or percentage of the final selling price to do the selling for them.

A common question at this point might be: "Why don’t people just list the items on eBay themselves?" It's a great question and the answer can be varied. Perhaps the person doesn't have internet access. Or, maybe they are not computer savvy and have never sold on eBay before...and wouldn't know the first thing about getting started. I have a cousin Tara who lives in NY. She called me the other day and asked where she bring the belongings of a deceased relative to sell. I asked her why she wouldn't do it herself. She said that with 2 kids and a career as a Doctor, just doesn't have the time to sell online. For her and thousands of others it’s worth their while to pay someone else to do it for them!

Drop-off stores are a growing market in the United States with more than 7,000 open for business, and more starting up all the time.

By starting your own drop-off store, you can…

• Generate another stream of income using your hard-earned eBay selling experience.

• Solve temporary product shortages by having the products come to you.

• Use your existing auction selling strategies to help manage and sell other people’s auctions.

• Make great profits! Many drop-off stores charge a commission of at least 25% of the final selling price.

How you can start and run a drop-off store

There are a number of factors to consider when looking at opening a drop-off store. Some of them are challenges:

• Red tape: Before you open a brick-and-mortar store, you must get a business license and make sure your place of business meets fire and safety standards and complies with other government regulations.

• Employees: A drop-off store needs to be staffed with reliable employees – which means payroll and staff management tasks and challenges.

• Overhead: You’ll have much higher overhead to factor into your profit margin calculations when running a brick-and-mortar store, as opposed to a purely online business. These include salaries, rent, utility bills, and equipment.

On the plus side, eBay drop-off stores have the potential to make a ton of money. And, as your eBay experience grows, it's definitely an opportunity worth exploring.

Here’s a quick guide to how to go about starting your own drop-off store…

Step #1: Gain some experience by becoming an eBay Trading Assistant (http://pages.ebay.com/tradingassistants). This way you can learn the ins and outs of selling other people’s products and still work out of your home or office. Your drop-off store will only be successful if you can show your potential customers that you have the experience to sell items on their behalf!

Step #2: Find premises. You’ll need a location that’s easy to get to a has parking facilities. Premises that are large enough to store the items you’ll be selling plus house a front desk and reception area, as well as office facilities. It should also be very secure as you’re dealing with other people’s property.

Step #3: Hire staff. You’ll need reliable staff to manage the store with you and take over if you’re ever sick or on holiday.

Step #4: Decide what to charge. The usual fee structure includes a per-item listing fee, which could be $1 to $3 and a percentage of the final selling price on top of that (commonly 25% to 30% and sometimes as high as 40%). Payment of eBay fees is usually on top of these charges. How much you charge depends on weather you plan to sell big-ticket items or lower-end items. With big-ticket items you can charge a lower commission as the final selling price is high. With lower-end items you need to charge more, or sell a LOT of them, to make real money.

Step #5: Advertise! Once you’re set up with a location and premises, you need to advertise your services. Here are a few ways to advertise your drop-off store:

Buy classified ads in local newspapers. Put an ad in the “Wanted” and “For Sale” sections of your local newspapers and buy-and-sell web sites such as www.CraigsList.com.

• Set up a web site like these: www.I-SoldIt.com and www.CanadaYardSale.com
• Put an ad in the Yellow Pages.
• Stick posters up around town advertising for items for sale.
• Put ads in your community newspapers or newsletters.

Step #6: Maintain an excellent feedback rating. People won’t entrust you with their goods to sell unless you have a feedback rating that proves you can do a good job for them. So you need to follow all the same strategies it takes to become a successful eBay seller, such as writing effective product descriptions, providing faultless customer service, packaging goods properly, and so on.

All of these steps are important, but Step #6 may be the most crucial to running a successful long-term drop-off business. A good selling reputation will generate repeat business, personal referrals, and positive feedback; a bad one will make it very hard to stay in business.

Until the next issue...

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