Finding Products To Sell On eBay

Recently, I received an articulate and sincere email from a very frustrated would-be eBay success story. I have excerpted it here:

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Subject: Finding products to sell is the easiest part??? Uuggghh!!

... I've bought and sold ~40 items on Ebay. That's the extent of my internet marketing.

... I've researched and researched 'til my brain is fried. Overture and Wordtracker are good demand and supply tools but you've got to have some idea of your product first before you can input related search terms.

... Sell what's selling. Or, sell what's in demand. Makes sense to me. But electronics are in demand and yet both Andy and Chris Malta both say that market is saturated. Others say find something your passionate about. I have two passions, golf and music, neither of which I've been able to adapt to a marketable product. Then I was reading your auction genius course sales letter and read your statement about people not believing you when you say finding products is the easiest part. And I thought......ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Well, I guess you're right that finding them is easy. Go to WWB. But which ones? I'm using the Market research wizard and have yet to find a product in demand that results in an analysis score of greater than 1%. SEO and all the rest is meaningless if you don't have a product. CAN YOU HEAR THE FRUSTRATION IN MY VOICE? Sorry, I'm just really at a loss for how to go about this process. Everyone is looking the holy grail of ecommerce. High demand and low supply. And I don't want someone to tell me what to sell. I just wish someone would provide some guidance as to how to go about this. Sell what's selling is just too broad of a term for my liking.

... is there some method to this madness of finding a niche? Thank you for your time and sincere thanks in advance for any advice given.

...p.s. I'm really starting to understand why Andy says that most people get to this point in their ecommerce career and then quit. They get paralysis analysis on the product.

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Observations:

But electronics are in demand and yet both Andy and Chris Malta both say that market is saturated.

Absolutely right! There is no more crowded field anywhere. Another category I advise my students to avoid is jewelry.

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Others say find something your passionate about. I have two passions, golf and music, neither of which I've been able to adapt to a marketable product.

What I'm passionate about it making money in an honest manner. If a product isn't illegal or immoral, I will happily sell it. Now, of course, if you're going to build a huge 'authority site' around a topic, one with hundreds of pages and products, then it definitely helps to be interested in the topic. But for an eBay auction ... sell other people what they want. This isn't about you and me, the sellers. It's about the buyers and what they want.

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Then I was reading your auction genius course sales letter and read your statement about people not believing you when you say finding products is the easiest part. And I thought......ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Well, I guess you're right that finding them is easy. Go to WWB. But which ones? I'm using the Market research wizard and have yet to find a product in demand that results in an analysis score of greater than 1%. SEO and all the rest is meaningless if you don't have a product. CAN YOU HEAR THE FRUSTRATION IN MY VOICE? Sorry, I'm just really at a loss for how to go about this process.

When he refers to "WWB" he is referring to Worldwidebrands, and the Market Research Wizard is also their product. And they are fine products. But his real problem is lack of knowledge on how to do market research. There is no way to take a single piece of software, type in a keyword phrase and have a Magic Answer emerge on your screen. The Wizard is one tool and only one. There is much more that goes into identifying a a profitable eBay or Internet product. Without this knowledge, his chances of finding a genuine winner are slim.

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... I've researched and researched 'til my brain is fried. Overture and Wordtracker are good demand and supply tools but you've got to have some idea of your product first before you can input related search terms.

He's 100% right when he says you can't effectively do keyword research until you know what your product is. If you're going to sell fine crystal glasses, you need to know the best keywords for fine crystal glasses if you're going to send traffic to your auctions and/or website. But isn't he doing exactly what he says NOT to do? He's researching keywords for products he doesn't have!

Example: let's suppose he does his keyword research and finds the perfect niche: huge amount of demand and very few competitors. And all of his competitors are relatively inept. Now what? If he can't find the product all his efforts are useless. There is no bigger waste of time than spending hours, days and weeks chasing an elusive product. I've been selling on eBay for over 10 years and I absolutely can NOT find a source for every product I've ever thought about. How can a total novice hope to succeed?

The point is that he's going about this backwards! Here's his method:

Do keyword research ---> Find winning search terms --->
Look for product that fits keyword research

Here's a much more efficient way:

Locate tens of thousands of wholesale products ---> do keyword
research based on the thousands of products already available to you

An irony: he mentions that he can't find any products in the music field yet I recently helped a friend research almost 4,000 music products to find some winners to sell on eBay. Currently, she's more than replaced the income she lost when she was laid off from her job at IBM. Selling ... music products.

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Make sense? All comments welcome because is the #1 question I get about eBay. But think about it ... how many products are there on Planet Earth? Millions? Billions? Trillions? Quadrillions? (Don't know what comes after quadrillions :-) Does it really make sense that you can't find a handful of those products to sell on eBay?

Our frustrated writer has drawn the wrong conclusions:

1. He thinks there is nothing for him to sell
2. He thinks that no one else knows how to do this, either - or is teaching the "how to"

He's completely wrong on both counts. The real problem, though, is his own lack of knowledge.

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eBay Makes It Easier To Answer Anonymous eMail Questions

Do you get email questions about your auctions from folks who won't reveal their email addresses? Currently, when an email is sent to you through eBay's system - and the sender has chosen to hide their email address - you cannot respond directly from your email system. Instead, you are directed to "Use The Yellow Button" within the body of the email, which takes you to a reply form.

According to eBay, "We've heard from members that this can be confusing and inefficient, especially when you have a large volume of emails to answer."

To deal with this problem, eBay has created 'Anonymous Email Forwarding'. This change will allow you to respond to email from your own email client, while still protecting the sender's privacy and will supposedly be available during October. According to eBay, here's how it works:

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When a member sends you a message through eBay and has chosen to hide their email address, we'll create anonymous email addresses for both you and the sender. You can then reply to emails directly from your email client just like you do for any email. When your response comes back into our systems, our system will forward it to the appropriate recipient. The anonymous email forwarding service will help members communicate easily with one another while preserving the privacy of your email addresses.

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I have a much easier way to dealing with anonymous questioners: I delete them. I figure if someone can't even reveal their email address they probably aren't a serious buyer. Has this cost me some money? Possibly. But the volume of email I receive every day is gigantic and I choose to spend my precious time with people who are serious and professional. Anonymous emails don't fit that definition.

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One Way To Protect Yourself From Non-Paying Bidders

Are you familiar with the "Requiring Immediate Payment" feature on eBay? It is for Buy It Now listings and states that the item listing will NOT be removed unless the buyer pays immediately. I like this handy feature and eBay recently raised the limit from $2,000 to $4,000.

How it works:

* A buyer who clicks the Buy It Now button in your listing is directed to pay immediately for the item using PayPal.

* Until the buyer completes payment, the item remains available to other buyers to purchase for the duration of the listing. The first buyer to complete their PayPal payment officially wins your item.

* Once a buyer completes payment, the listing ends and you, the seller, are directed to ship the item.

If you want to use this handy dandy feature, you need to know there are certain requirements to be eligible for it. You must ...

* Have a PayPal Premier or PayPal Business account when you list your item

* Have an eBay seller account in good standing

* Specify a Buy It Now price of no more than $4,000

* Specify shipping costs (or include the shipping calculator in your listing) and include other related costs such as insurance and taxes, so your buyer knows exactly how much to pay

This feature is especially useful when selling something that is more expensive and it certainly is outstanding protection from the dreaded Non Paying Bidder.

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Scumbags Continue To Use Fake eBay Messages To Defraud People

Just a sample of what was in my email box from the thieves this week:

1. My supposed suspension for shill bidding:

"Shill bidding" is bidding on my own auctions in order to artificially inflate the price. The crooks hope that I will panic and race to assure eBay that I am not guilty of such a heinous crime. And of course, they want me to respond via their link to "unsuspend" my account.

1. My supposed suspension for shill bidding:

In this piece of trash, the scumbags are trying to convince me that "digitaltrader-uk has paid me for an auction item - but I neglected to send it to him. A novice (they hope) will panic and click the "review the submitted details" button and convince eBay that it's all a big mistake and I'm innocent.

An especially bad feature of this garbage is that they have used a real eBay ID. I'm sure that 'digitaltrader_uk' has no idea her/his ID has been usurped in this shabby way.