Before we begin, we would like to stress the fact that you always need to do some research before starting selling products on eBay. You should take the time to find out which products are the most in demand so you can focus your time on the proper products. If you decide to sell a product with a very low demand, then you will most likely end up not selling your product. This is why we recommend the following 2 simple programs which you can easily download to your computer. It will help you find the hottest products on eBay AND it will help you find the most in demand products.

1. Find the hottest items being sold on eBay

2. Find out which products are the most in demand

3. How to market a website with Google Adwords

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So you want to start an online business! Since most people don’t know anything about e-commerce and building websites and such, most folks will start out by selling products on eBay, then pay someone to build a website once the money starts coming in. The big question is: what is the hot product to sell on eBay to make money fast?

While it’s true that selling products on eBay can be a quick, low cost way to launch an online business, following the herd by selling the “hot product” of the moment, is not a great idea. To the contrary, chances are you will be stomped in the ground by the herd and left lying in the dust with your unsold inventory in hand.

The most successful eBay sellers are those who understand that success on eBay relies on many of the same factors as success in a brick and mortar business.

Smart sellers research the marketplace and the competition to determine the salebility and profitability of the product.

Smart sellers test the market with one or two before committing to a product line and tying up their cash reserves in inventory that may never sell.

Smart sellers adjust their product offerings until they find a product or product line that sells consistently.

The last point is perhaps the most important. Long term eBay success does not come from “one off” sales. The key to real eBay success is to find a product that sells well and sell that product over and over and over again. There are several websites where you can find excellent products that can ship products directly to your customers once you sell their products. These companies are often called Dropship companies. www.BuyatDiscounts.com will offer you the best service of all since they will gather products from several manufacturers all in one place PLUS they will offer their dropshipping services to all theirs members at no extra cost. There are other websites that offer you the wholesale sources only, which means that you will need to work with the manufacturers directly in order to buy and sell the products on eBay.

Dropshipping TIP #1 – Choosing the right products to sell

The most successful eBay sellers are those who understand that success on eBay relies on many of the same factors as success in a brick and mortar business.

Smart sellers research the marketplace and the competition to determine the salebility and profitability of the product.

Smart sellers test the market with one or two before committing to a product line and tying up their cash reserves in inventory that may never sell.

Smart sellers adjust their product offerings until they find a product or product line that sells consistently.

Dropshipping TIP #2 – Preparing To Sell

Using online auctions is a relatively inexpensive way to promote your products or services. On the downside, they can be very time-consuming to post to – especially if you’re only making a few dollars profit per sale. Several steps are involved before you can post your auction on major sites such as; eBay or Yahoo! Shopping Auctions. If you’re new to selling via online auctions, the following steps will make listing your item a smooth and easy process.

Plan your item title and description. Give some thought to naming and describing your item. What will buyers most want to know about it? What are its most appealing characteristics? What words might buyers use to search for your item?

Write your HTML code. If you plan to include HTML, complete and test your code before you get started with the listing process. Learn more about HTML.

Have a good picture of your item in an appropriate digital format. JPEG (.jpg) is recommended. If you host your own photos, have your photos uploaded to your service. In some cases, you’ll need your photos stored on your computer’s hard drive.

Have the item on hand. Keep the item close by in case you think of other things you want to add to your description. In addition, you’ll want to ship the item to the buyer ASAP.

Plan your pricing. You may want to do a little research into the selling prices of other items similar to yours. This will help you set your starting price.

Registration. This usually will require your credit/ debit card and bank account information. It is recommended you write down your registration information (username and password) or save it in a place you will remember in the future.

You’re now prepared to sell your item!

A few things to keep in mind after you’ve made the sell:

Communicate With The Buyer – Some auction sites offer a checkout service in which you must verify before receiving payment. Contact the buyer directly if you have not heard from the buyer within three days of your listing’s end.
Receive Payment – eBay and Yahoo! Offer their own payment solutions. Another popular method used by auctioneers is PayPal. If the buyer hasn’t already made payment, send them a letter explaining how they should proceed.
Ship Your Order Immediately – You don’t want your buyer to get angry. Many auctions provide buyer and seller feedback systems. It’s hard to sell products with a bad rating and several negative buyer comments.

Dropshipping TIP #3 – When is the Best Time to List Your Items?

You may think that you should list your items on Saturday mornings because that is when you have the most free time or on Monday nights after 10:00 because the family is in bed and you finally have total concentration. You need to ask yourself just how many possible buyers will be at their computers at closing time. Especially when 10:00 p.m. on the West Coast is 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast. There are lots of possible buyers shopping at lunchtime during the week. But, because of the enormous amount of traffic at that time, you really cut down on the possibility of last-minute bidding if the bids are all in an internet traffic jam and can’t get through at all.

The amount of bidders a viable at closing time is of utmost importance to your auction. Most of the bidding on any auction will occur in the first 24 hours (when it is listed as new) and on the last day (when is listed as ending today), with most people only looking at one of these two times. And, the bulk of the serious bidding will be in the last 5 minutes! An auction is truly at its best when two or more people fight over your item, and they may not be awake to do so at 1:00 in the morning.

When to list your items is best decided on actual sales histories of your particular items. Hardware and tools may get more male bidders who are looking on Saturday afternoon, and pokemon cards may get more attention from kids right after school. Etc. So, check the sales of completed items. You should be able to see a definite pattern for each type of item you plan to list. This is the first step.

If your item sells best on a weekday evening, now you need to see if there is also a second pattern. It sold best on Tuesday one week and Thursday the next week. Why? One big factor in evening sales now is “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” There are almost no bidders at their computers when this show is on television. This show happens to be moved around from week to week. On top of that, if it is on at 8:00 p.m., that means 8:00 p.m. on both coasts so West Coast seller has to work around 5:00 p.m. through 8:00 p.m., and the East Coast seller has to work around 8:00 p.m. through 11:00 p.m.

There are many more factors that come into play. Watch the weather forecasts for all parts of the country. If the East Coast is due for heavy rains, more possible bidders will be available at their computers instead of outside enjoying the spring or summer weather – and vice versa. If an area is in the middle of a terrible heat wave, they may be hiding inside at their computer instead of doing anything outside. Great weather is bad for sales. You may not want to have items close on Thanksgiving afternoon when most of the country is sitting down to a great meal – or in the evening on the day of a Presidential election. Contrary to this logic, Christmas morning may be a good time to have items close because many people don’t have family with whom to share their day or they are not of a Christian faith. Those people would see this as a great time to sneak in a few bids. Other people may go shopping on Christmas afternoon to try to buy what they didn’t receive for a gift!

Selling at the busiest time of the day will make your photos load slower. At any time, using a dial-up connection puts your auctions at risk since they will take longer to load. And, since most dial-up connections get lost often, there is always the chance that your photos will not load at all. When either happens, you will lose buyers. Some could bookmark your auction to try again later, but last-minute shoppers don’t have time to come back. Cable modem or DSL will make everything you do on the internet at least 10 times faster – without disconnects. You only need to be have your photos not load during the last half hour of an auction once to know how important your internet connection is.

The real answer to when to list your items is it is totally relative…. relative to as many factors as you can think of. You will need to do research on the past and try to foresee the future. Good luck on the latter.

Dropshipping TIP #4 – How To Get FREE Shipping Supplies

The United States Post Office is still “pushing” their Priority Mail services. You can order all the shipping supplies you want through the USPS – order in minutes on line – and have them delivered to your door. When you make your first order, the USPS will mail you a postcard to sign and mail back to them. The “payment” for this deal is simply agreeing to (and signing to prove it) use these supplies only for their intended purpose. Anyone caught turning Priority Mail boxes inside out to use a cheaper mail service will be in big trouble. We haven’t done this so we don’t know if you get a large fine, jail time, or just lose the privilege to ever receive any more supplies. So, this is not for you if you prefer to send your packages by UPS or using the Book Rate.Just what kind of supplies does the USPS offer? Small boxes, larger boxes, flat boxes, larger flat boxes, small flat boxes, flat mailers, “Priority Mail” tape, and labels. You can’t have it all, ! you have to buy your own bubble-wrap! The only real catch is that you must order the minimum, which can be a case of boxes. Since the boxes come flat, this is not as bad as it sounds. For those that don’t want to use Priority Mail or the USPS in general, there are still places to get boxes for free.

Your local supermarket gets deliveries at least once a week. Just ask one of their employees on what day and at what time their deliveries arrive. They won’t usually save boxes for you, but you can walk in and get as many as you like before they cut them down for recycling.
Office Depot has great boxes for larger items. They receive their reams of paper in sturdy boxes with lids, and these are always clean. Our local Office Depot receives paper deliveries twice a week. The store manager even agreed to hold the boxes for a few hours. We just need to go in on the correct day. Since these are such handy boxes, you may have to be the first to get to the store to beat others with the same idea.
Check the free ads in the Recycler. Companies go out of business all the time, and they would usually prefer to give their supply of boxes away than to pay someone to haul them away. We found a vitamin store that was closing down and got hundreds of small and tiny boxes. These are not only great for mailing small items, but they are perfect for double boxing a set of smaller breakables.

Liquor stores have the sturdiest boxes since bottles of liquor and wine are so heavy. If you sell bottles, these may even come with cardboard slots in them already to keep bottles from hitting each other when you send out several to one buyer.

Dumpsters behind stores sometimes have good empty boxes. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find the boxes piled outside the dumpster. Either way, you should check them to be sure that they are clean and dry (a box will be weakened forever once it gets wet).
Get inventive, you may find even more good suppliers of boxes.