General

The First Wholesale Help Meetup of 2015

By popular demand and with some help from Cambridge Fire Station the first Wholesale Help offline meetup was held this week and it was a great evening!

If you’ve been following my posts and videos over the years you will know that I’m keen on collaboration, I believe that we can achieve so much more together than individually, even if that is simply from inspiration, and encouragement If you’re working on your own from behind a computer it’s easy to get quite isolated from the world and so coming together can really help in many ways.

The Wholesale Help community is truly international spanning most countries in the world nearly 10,000 strong on YouTube and getting on for 1000 members in the private facebook group, so organizing a location to meet up was always going to be a challenge, when I first mentioned the idea last year I asked for the location of our UK members and I got replies from the very top of Scotland all the way through to the very bottom of England, so I guess it will have to be a travelling group!

After looking at the options I decided upon Cambridge as it was within an hour of quite a few people, then long term member Ian messaged me to say that he could arrange for us to hold the meetup in the newly re-opened fire station which I thought sounded like great fun.

The only snag was that there was only enough space for 12 people, so I didn’t send out an email or mention it on a video, we just arranged it on the facebook group and it worked out great.

I spoke about Amazon FBA and how it can be scaled into a massive international retail business without taking on any staff or warehouses, it enables me to travel all over the world 4 – 5 times per year and live my life on my terms. The interaction was great and we got into some great discussions and WH member Larry was very helpful in giving his thoughts as he is an active FBA seller.

All in all it was a great first meetup and the reaction seemed positive and I think everyone learned something including myself, I will certainly be arranging more in the near future so if you are in the UK and would like to come along to a meetup be sure to keep an eye on the facebook group here or the YouTube channel here.

If you would like to know more about Amazon FBA I am holding a one day training course where I will take you through everything you need to build your business plus ongoing support in live webinars to ensure you stay on track. Take a look here: www.import2amazon.com

1 Comment

How to Sell on Amazon using FBA

I’ve been seeing a lot of questions over on the Wholesale Help private Facebook group about Amazon – we cover eBay quite thoroughly, but what about Amazon? Well, if you’ve got questions, I’ve got answers, which is why this is the first installment in the series I’m calling “Amazon Seller’s Tips and Tricks”. I’ll still be doing my other eBay videos and Reader’s Questions, but we’re going to toss Amazon into the mix as well. We’ll begin by addressing the ups and downs of selling with Amazon FBA.

Now, what is FBA? That stands for “fulfilled by Amazon”, and it means that you ship your items to the Amazon warehouse, and when they’re ordered by customers through Amazon’s site, they pack and ship your item for you. Basically, once you’ve sent them your stock, your job in the sale of your item is finished. It’s relatively new in the UK, and I actually took a very helpful course on it called “The Proven Amazon Course” by Jim Cockrum. He and other experienced Amazon FBA sellers from the US (where the system originated and has been in place for years) share their experience and tips with sellers that are new to the FBA process, and it was extremely helpful in avoiding the pitfalls that can become some sellers when going through a new channel. I’ll be doing a more in-depth review on this course later on, though, so check back for that.

For me, the automation of the process is a major plus. I can just send them a load of things and I’m done. This way, I can go away on holiday and continue to sell items and make money. Also, it’s a huge time saver. If you send Amazon 180 items, you’ve already got 180 items listed for sale on their site. You can use this as a tool to really scale up your business and make more sales very easily.

Of course, since Amazon is careful with its vendors, you can’t always jump right into selling in certain categories. There are some you can get into right away, but others, you’ve got to work towards. With some categories, you have to apply to Amazon for the ability to sell items, and there are stipulations. For example, you have to have an established eCommerce site. Amazon does this because it’s very invested in customer satisfaction, and want to make sure you’re trustworthy before it takes the risk of you selling high-profile items to its general public.

For all of the work they do for you, though, the fees for Amazon FBA are much higher than over on eBay. But, consider everything they take care of for you – they receive your items, unpack them, log them in their system, store them until they’re sold, repack them, and ship them out. It’s not a lot of money for everything you’re getting from them.

The other downside is that you’ve got less control selling through Amazon. You’re on their site, but make no mistake about it, those are their customers, not yours. For example, if the customer wants a refund, Amazon will typically just give it to them without even notifying you. Oftentimes, you don’t get your item back, either. They take customer satisfaction seriously, and will go above you to make sure that their clientele is kept happy.

Some categories can get quite competitive as well. We’ll discuss this more in-depth later on in the Amazon Seller’s Tips and Tricks series, but it’s something to beware of. Always do your research before diving in.

Check out the video below for more information. Be sure to check back often for the next installment of Amazon Seller’s Tips and Tricks, and let me know what you think about Amazon FBA!

Why Aren’t My eBay Items Selling?

Today’s question comes from someone from the Wholesale Help member’s club in a private message. I won’t quote the whole thing, but I’ll give you the gist: “I researched my niche, I found an item, I bought the item, I had some good sales, and now the sales have slackened off. Why are my items not selling?”

There are a few things to cover with this. I’ve narrowed it down to three core selling elements, and it all ties together with a fourth. The three keys are: demand, profit margin, and competition. Your profit margin and lack of competition don’t matter if there is no demand. Your lack of competition and demand are pointless if there’s no profit margin for you to make money off your sales. Your demand and profit margin mean nothing is the competition is too high, because you’ll never be seen among the crowd. These are all good things to research before you by a large number of an item. Of course, if you find yourself having issues with these things, it’s best to lower your price until you sell out of the item, make your money back that you spent on getting said item in the first place, and try again with something new.

Of course, there can be variations to these rules. For example, it’s okay if you have a good profit margin and low competition but the demand is a little lower. When buyers do look for the item, low competition drives them to you and the high profit margin puts money in your pocket. If profit margin is the weak element, but you’re still selling a large number of the product, you can make that work. If you sell fifty items at a £1 profit, you’re still going to make £50. I don’t like to do it that way, but it could work out. Competition is hard when it comes to variations, though. If there’s a high demand, you may still make some money, and it may be worth it if the profit margin is astronomical, but several dozen other people have that same idea.

The final thing that ties all of this together is scale. It would behoove you to stock your eBay store well with complementary items, because some items sell quickly, some don’t, and some fluctuate between highs and lows in regards to demand. Having more items stabilizes your business. If you have one item that you sell five times per month, you’re still doing okay. But, imagine if you had twenty items, all of which sell five times per month. Instead of making five sales per month, you’d be making a hundred. If your profit margin were at, say, £20/item, you’d be making £2000/month. In terms of sales, that’s not bad at all.

While that’s the general overview of the question itself, I’d like to take a moment to thank you guys. By my donating 20% of all the profit from the sale of my eBay tutorial DVD course (which is still available for sale!), we’ve managed to raise over £300 for cancer research, which comes out to over $500 USD. If you haven’t already gotten the DVD, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. The DVD will help you and your business, and your purchase will help fund cancer research.

Check out the video below for a more detailed description of the above!

Step-by-Step Instructional DVD Available Now!

As you guys well know by now, through this channel, I’ve been able to help tons of people set themselves and their businesses up for success through my experience in several different online marketing platforms. You know by now that I’m passionate about helping others to achieve success online because of how liberating it is. Earning a living by selling online cuts you away from the mundane parts of work – the daily commute, the office politics, and so on and so forth. Working for someone else pays you for your time, because you have to be there, but online business is much different. There’s no correlation between how much you work and how much money you make. With your business always working for you, there’s no ceiling to where you can go with an online marketing job. By freeing yourself from your job, you’re free to be the person you want.

I’ve been helping people make money online for several years, but some people are struggling to put all the pieces together. I asked you here at Wholesale Help if it’d help if I created a step-by-step instructional DVD to put all the pieces together for your chronologically through to a fully functional, refined online business, and I received a resounding, “Yes”.

I want to put everyone in the same boat, so I didn’t use an established eBay account to make this DVD. I started with a fresh eBay account, and filmed the steps that I took, the steps anybody can take. By using the right tools in the right way, you can build the same success for yourself that I built in the DVD. Using these tips and tricks helps you to build your business based on fact instead of guesswork, providing you with a more stable foundation as you build ever upward.

No matter how much money you want to make with your online business, my eBay tutorial series can help you achieve it. It’s a compilation of twenty-two videos, totaling over three hours worth of training that I’ve made into a physical DVD for use on anything with a DVD drive.

I called this DVD Instant Profit Auctions simply because my items were selling almost immediately as I was working through setting up this account. I took an empty account and built it into a top-rated seller account in my fastest time ever, and on this DVD, you’ll get to come along through each step of the process so you can see what I did, and then apply it to your own business.

I’ve always been passionate about helping others, so I’ve made the decision to donate 20% of the profits from the sales of Instant Profit Auctions to Cancer Research UK, because I’d like to try to help out with something that devastates so many people every year. I want to help as many people as possible, so by changing your life through your business with the help of this DVD, we’ll both be helping to change someone else’s life as well.

A lot of people have spoken to about the value of this DVD, regarding how much you’ll learn and how much you’ll earn, the price should be in the hundreds. However, I really do want to help as many people as I can, so I’ve priced it low enough that everybody could afford it. The price of this DVD is just £27.95, plus £1.99 for shipping. It’s about $48 in USD, and I’ll ship it to your door. In the UK, that’s the cost of going to the movies for the night with your special someone. Besides, if you follow the steps and advice on this DVD, you’ll make that back in your first few sales.

Check out the introductory video below. In the comments box, I’ve listed the site featuring the official advertising video for the DVD, and I’ll also paste it in here below the YouTube video, so be sure to check it out for all the details about this can’t-miss DVD.

The introductory video:

The link to the promotional sales video:

http://wholesalehelp.wpengine.com/instantprofitauctions/

1 Comment

How to Set Up an eBay Store

Today’s question is from Jack over at the Wholesale Help private Facebook group. He asks, “I’ve been selling on eBay for about eight months, and just opened a store this week. A video guide about setting up an eBay store and the basics would be really helpful.” It’s an extremely good question, since we’ve talked a lot about having an eBay store, but never quite talked at length about making one.

Before we get started, let’s talk about the good things that come from having an eBay store. If you’re selling regularly and you want to list multiple items regularly, an eBay store is a good idea. In the UK, you get up to 200 free store listings that last for thirty days that you can set to auto-renew. You still pay a nominal final value fee, but you don’t get any regular listing fees. In contrast, their visibility isn’t as high as an auction item’s, but they’re a good way to list a lot of things.

Jack has already signed up for his eBay store, so we’re going to go through a few settings that I think are worth looking at. We start at the My eBay page, down on the bottom right, where you’ll see a section entitled “Manage My Shop”. This is where you can customize your store. The navigational options are off to your left side. We won’t go through everything, since there are a number of things there to play with, but we’ll hit the critical points.

The first one is “Search Engine Keywords”. You’ll want to spend time coming up with the main keywords for your store, since these will help your products to appear in the search results. You’ll have space for primary, secondary, and category keywords. Think about brand names, descriptions, and the main things that will help your stock move. Don’t put in unrelated keywords, though, because it won’t help you at all, and you can get penalized for it. Just think critically about your main keywords. If you’re having a hard time, check out the Google Keyword Tool, where you put in your primary keyword and receive the popular sub-keywords for it. An increased chance of showing up in the search results brings about more traffic to your store, which means more potential sales, so doing this well is crucial to your eBay business.

The next thing is “Display Settings” up at the top. This is where you can upload a logo for your shop. If you don’t have one, be sure to check out fiverr.com – it’s a website where you hire someone for only $5 to do a variety of things, like design a logo for your shop. It takes only a few days to get it back, and you’ll have an attractive, inexpensive logo to decorate your shop.

Also important is the “Listing Frame” subsection of “Marketing Tools”. There are tons of customization settings here, so you can change a number of things about your store. You can show your logo, display specific categories, decide how your items are formatted in your store, and a number of other options. I advise you to click around and check out the different options and play around, just to see what you like the best.

This is also where you can put a link to sign up for a shop newsletter, which leads me into email marketing. Over in the toolbar, you’ll see an option for “Mailing Lists”. EBay allows you to create your own newsletter to keep in touch with your buyers, which is a huge deal. It takes moments to set up, and the right wording can earn you repeat buyers, which earns you more money. It reminds people about you and your store, and it helps them to find their way back. You could alert people to lowered prices or when you have new stock, and it keeps them going back to your store. You can use this creatively – when I was selling iPhone cases, I offered a free screen protector to anybody who signed up for my newsletter after they purchased a case. The screen protectors were cheap enough (I got them for only a few cents each), and it convinced people to sign up. Newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your customers, and it adds zeroes to your profit at the end of the year, so figure out how it works for your own store and put it to use.

Make sure to check out the video below for all the visual guides to help you through what you’ve just read. Pardon the blurs, but I’m using my own eBay account for reference, and I don’t disclose my personal accounts due to some previous issues with eBay that cost me a lot of time and hardship. The important bits are still there, though, so make sure to go ahead and watch the guide.