Shopster's Dropshippers, eCommerce, and Selling Online Blog

Selling Online Made Easy

If you want to set up an online store, what should you sell?

Selling online need not be a difficult task if what you have to sell has a ready market. There are basically two types of stores. The first caters to a niche market and can be referred to as specialty stores. The other caters to a broader market and would be the equivalent of a department store or supermarket.

The second type has a wide variety of products or goods and its advantage is having a wider clientele automatically means more potential customers.

Between the two, however, the first type is easier to set up. You may already have a product or service in mind that you specialize in. If you have a knack for writing and editing, for example, then this skill of yours is what you sell. Selling online becomes second nature to you. With so many companies and sites looking for writers and editors, customers should not be hard to find.

If accounting or artwork or gardening is your skill, same thing. As for products, if you are a good cook, or you can sew children’s clothes, or like to assemble costume jewellery, you have ready products to sell.

For those with higher ambitions, a wide range of products are available for your selling online activity. The numerous drop shippers can be a source of products to sell, with the added advantage of your not having to shell out large sums of money to build up an inventory. The important thing is to pick the products that are close to your heart. Selling online may be a business activity, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have fun while you’re doing it.

There are no magic tricks to success through selling online. Start with a sound marketing plan and you’re on your way.

 

Personalizing your Online Store

Like most consumers, you probably have a favourite mom and pop store or two selling all sorts of knickknacks and gift items. These stores do not belong to any nationwide chain but are owned and run by the owners themselves. Some of the items they sell may be homemade products made by friends and neighbours.

Such stores have a homey feel that that large chains try to emulate with little success. It is the personal touch of the owners that makes all the difference in the world.

This is just as true with that online store that you keep going back to, not always to buy but simply to browse.

For would-be entrepreneurs, there is no reason why they cannot create an online store that has the same feel as a friendly, neighbourhood gift shop.

One simple way to get this special feel is for the owner to place his or her photo in the site. He or she may even push a bargain or bargains of the day or week.

Care should be taken to avoid seeming those high-pressure used car salesmen as seen on television. An over-the-top approach could have the negative effect of turning off instead of appealing to potential customers.

Most of the time, the soft sell approach beats the hard sell method by a mile. There may, however, be instances when the owner of the online store is truly excited about the bargain of the week being offered. In such cases, it’s perfectly all right to be more excited than usual.

Needless to say, a highly personalized online store can become a highly profitable enterprise. A little originality can go a long, long way.

Why not be a drop shipper yourself?

Looking at the sheer number of individuals and companies engaged in ecommerce, it is clear that there are countless business opportunities in the internet, not the least of which are the parties who are drop shippers.

It may be said that drop shippers specialize in one area of marketing other than direct retailing. This is something they prefer to leave to those whose calling is retail sales.

As with any product or service, much goes on behind what the consumer finally buys.

Be it in the physical world or in the virtual world that is the internet, drop shippers provide an essential link in the supply chain. Drop shippers may be manufacturers or they may be wholesalers. They work best with partners who are salesmen at heart, although they may have different titles.

Ideally, both drop shippers and retailers make decent profits by providing products or services that consumers of certain niches need or want.

The retailer has the distinct advantage of keeping his or her costs low due to the absence of a large inventory. These retailers may have a small inventory, but by and large the products or services are delivered by the drop shippers.

Collection of payments depends on the arrangements made between the retailers and the drop shippers.

What does it take to become a successful drop shipper? For one, there has to be a commitment to doing his or her part of the arrangement, which is never to compete with the partners. They choose to become drop shippers and drop shippers only.

Under a best-case scenario, the drop shippers know that they can trust their retailers, and vice versa.

Online Drop Shipping Stores as Your Equal Business Partner

The idea seems simple enough: Create your own online store selling goods you get from suppliers. No inventory of your own is necessary. This means lower operating costs. This is not unlike having a physical store selling nothing but consigned goods.

But what to sell and where to get the products? This is where online drop shipping stores come in, and there are plenty of them out there. Choosing what goods to sell is entirely dependent on your personal interests. The rule of thumb is not to sell anything you would not buy yourself.

The best ones are those which have years of experience in this supply chain management technique, which is essentially what online drop shipping stores is all about.

Since they are experts in the areas of manufacturing, stocking, and delivering, but not necessarily marketing, they depend on you to help them sell their goods. Under the most ideal circumstances, you become equal partners. For as long as each party does his or her part, both sides win.

But not all online drop shipping stores are created equal. Some will give retailers better deals than others.

On your part, dealing with one may provide extremely profitable, while dealing with another will hardly be worth your while.

The start-up period will naturally entail some difficulties and some kinks that need to be worked out. Remember that no store, physical or online, ever makes a profit from day one. But with patience, hard work, and a bit of luck, you can have your own business soon enough, with a little help from one or two or more of those online drop shipping stores.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Ecommerce

Because ecommerce is a relatively new phenomenon, the rules that govern its best practices are still being written.

Consider that a mere 20 years ago, ecommerce as we know it now did not even exist. True, the first steps were already being taken back then but the pioneers were essentially following the same rules as conventional commerce, transposed to the still-new electronic media.

We now know that some of these old rules simply do not work, or worse, are actually counterproductive. The case of advertising a product or service is one example.

In the past, conventional thinking said that massive advertising in all media was the best way to introduce a new product. The more consumers who saw the product on TV, read about it in the newspapers, or heard about it on radio (with their ubiquitous jingles), the better for the product. There was no such thing as overexposure and this “shotgun approach” was king.

Not so where ecommerce is concerned. Blasting a product’s or service’s merits in the form of spam may seem like the electronic counterpart of yesterday’s tri-media advertising, but its effects can have a negative impact. Consumers can actually avoid a product or service if they receive too much spam about it. Worse, complaints can be filed against practitioners of this marketing tactic or they can be banned outright by the target consumers.

In contrast, a viewer of free TV may be exposed to commercials, but he or she has the option of watching it, turning off the sound, getting up for a snack, or switching channels.

Newspaper or magazine readers, meanwhile, have the option of simply ignoring the advertisements in his or her favourite periodical.

For ecommerce, some of the old rules still apply. Targeting your specific or niche market with sales materials is still a smart and cost-efficient way of spending your advertising budget. But forcing your sales materials where they are not wanted or where they’re not welcome can only cause serious harm to your product’s or service’s reputation, something you definitely do not want to happen.

Climb to the Next Level via Drop Shipping

If your patience, hard work and a bit of luck have paid off and you are finally generating a sufficient income on eBay, expanding your business can be made faster by drop shipping.

Drop shipping on eBay has grown dramatically over the years as can be seen from so many sellers pushing the same products. Those products are, in all likelihood, distributed to the eBay retailers by wholesalers not inclined to go into retail sales themselves.

Drop shipping on eBay is that proverbial win-win situation because the retailer does not have to spend so much money to build up an inventory, while the manufacturer or wholesaler has multiple marketing arms to sell his goods.

Entrepreneurs who have already made their mark on eBay can easily expand their online business by searching for companies which have related goods or services – known as downstream industries – and including these in their virtual store.

If, for example, you have an extensive collection of old toys and have managed to sell these at a healthy profit, you can now include old and new toys from any manufacturer or wholesaler among your offerings. Such is how drop shipping on eBay works. In the physical world, this is not unlike indent sales, where sales and marketing companies act as representatives for products without having these products on stock.

Once sales are made, the manufacturer or wholesaler takes care of delivery.

The drop shipping technique can be adopted by nearly every eBay entrepreneur. All he or she has to do is identify the products that can be sold at the same site as the original product from where the business started. So instead of being a one-trick pony or owner of a short-lived fad product, the online entrepreneur can expand his business by diversifying. Indeed, drop shipping on eBay is paving the way for greater success for many an entrepreneur.

 

Better marketing with ecommerce

Sooner or later, all business schools will categorize all economic activity into the pre-ecommerce and post-ecommerce eras.

There is hardly any service or product that cannot be marketed  through the use of ecommerce and to deny this is to stick to a system that has become obsolete.  This would be tantamount to a trader insisting on selling his goods via the barter trade system, rather than through the use of cash.

Even “cash” has become electronic, no longer the paper money or coins of decades and centuries past. Whether through the use of credit or debit cards, purchases of anything are much safer now than carrying hard currency including all the germs and microbes they carry.

Any person or company engaged in any kind of business must, therefore, accept the reality that ecommerce is the way to go.

Consider that the single biggest purchases any person will ever make (real property and vehicles) as well as the smallest luxuries and necessities (meat, groceries, make-up, etc.) can now be bought online. While it may be argued that nothing takes the place of paying an actual visit to a house and lot or replace the “new car” smell of a vehicle in a showroom, one can still save time and money by first looking at photos of the intended purchase online. Consider, too, that while the scent and sizzle of a steak can never be experienced online, glowing reviews and glorious pictures of that t-bone or prime rib will be enough to convince the hungry consumer to either order online, or pay a visit to that restaurant pronto.

Nor is it too farfetched to expect that the day will come when touching an item to be bought, even smelling it, can happen in the virtual world. Technology is moving at such a fast pace that what was impossible yesterday will be commonplace tomorrow.

 

Year-round versus Seasonal Sellers

While there is definitely an advantage to playing the seasons and it’s ever-increasing sale peaks, you will lose out if you focus only on products that are seasonal. For instance, if you focus on Christmas decorations as your niche, you will definitely make good money from the months of October to December, but you’re sales will be dead for 9 months.

There is a big difference between having downtime, which you can use to manage inventory, and having limited time to sell. You can either switch it up or go with a more general item that has peaks and valleys in sales but are in consistent demand year-round.

In  our earlier example of selling Christmas decorations, a better approach would be to sell holiday decorations. For late December to early January, focus on New Year items. As January draws to a close and before mid-February hits, go with hearts and roses for Valentine’s day. You get the drift here?

Another good approach would be to go with a niche that is affected by seasonality in a good way such as the apparel industry. Here, you can change up your inventory almost quarterly to go with the different spring, summer, fall and winter wear. You can never go wrong if you stay on top of the seasonal demand for different types of clothing while having your usual stock of general all-weather, all-season items like jeans or t-shirts.

The changing seasons and the holidays can help you keep your inventory fresh. Even if there isn’t much change in the demand for the types of products within your niche, you could always use the different seasons and holidays as a way to repackage or redesign the way you sell, for instance with sales and promotions you run. 

Happy selling!  

eBay Selling Tips: About Me Page

Ever wonder what that little blue and red “me” icon is beside the product listing? In the world of eBay, it simply means that the seller has created an About Me page to tell you more about themselves. Clicking on that icon will take you to their About Me page.

But this article isn’t about how to use icons in eBay, we want to tell you a bit more about that particular page and how to use it to advertise your online store and your listings. Basically, this page will let you promote your auctions and build trust within the eBay community.

While your reputation scores will speak for itself, having that About Me page can help your potential buyers gain confidence in your as a seller if they know more about you, how many years you’ve been selling in eBay, the kinds of items you sell, any quality parameters you set as well as other items you sell in eBay.

To create your About Me page, login to eBay and follow the steps below:

1. http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?AboutMeLogin&&guest=1&guest=1 login here.
2. Click the Create Your Page button
3. You can use the creation wizard or work your html magic to add information, feedback, listings, links and images.
4. Choose your page layout.
5. Click submit and you’re done!

A good way to really get people to notice you is to participate in the eBay community. All the comments and posts you have in there will be linked to your About Me page, which in turn, will show your available auctions. It’s a great way to advertise your listings in eBay.

Happy eBay selling!

Key Elements for Selling Dropship Items Online

If we haven’t talked enough about the benefits of dropshipping, we’ll take another stab at it again with today’s post. Dropshipping can streamline your business processes, saving you time, effort and money as you push forward with your online selling business.

The essence of dropshipping is to remove the order fulfillment process from the retailer and to get him/her ready to sell online immediately. In Shopster’s dropship network, you’ll find hundreds of suppliers of dropship products which will send the items directly to your end buyers after your purchase of the inventory. All you have to do is to add the product to your own Shopster-powered store and you’re ready to sell without ever having to handle the physical product throughout the transaction. You save on shipping costs, warehouse rental and manpower costs for inventory management.

Given all that, if you’re ready to sell dropshipped items online, here are some pointers to start you off:

• There is no need to advertise that you are sourcing your product from a dropshipper. This is a business proposition that benefits the retailer, not the consumers, so sell your dropshipped products as you would any normal inventory.
• Provide good product descriptions and images. As we’ve said before, do not just copy and paste the product description right off the manufacturer-supplied descriptions, it would be best to come up with unique content for your own website.
• Do a little bit of background check on your dropship suppliers. Every time you sell a dropshipped product, it is your name on the line. Reliability must be on your checklist when choosing any supplier, dropship or not.
• Have a back-up plan. Remember, you are not the only retailer that your chosen dropship supplier is working with. Inventory can run out fast for popular products, so instead or risking backorders for your clients, have a back-up supplier for all your inventory.
• If anything goes wrong with the transaction, communicate this clearly with your clients and provide a realistic solution to the problem.

Happy selling!

How to Get People to Hit that Like Button

In this day and age, liking something means so much more than having a positive emotion towards an object. In most cases, it pertains to the Facebook Like button. This social network has revolutionized the way people share ideas by creating a physical representation of such a simple emotion. In Facebook, you can like photos, videos, links, comments and (something to take note of for businesses,) Pages.

If you’ve done your work, meaning you already have the said Facebook Page and you’ve integrated the Like button in your website, then you’re off to a good start. Keep a close eye on your numbers, particularly the weekly increase in people who Like your page. If you see that there is no steady increase in numbers, it’s time to take action. Here are some ideas to get more people to “like” you:

• Use a clear call to action when telling people about your Facebook page. Simple having the Facebook icon to lead them to your page is not enough. You need to literally tell your target audience to “Like our page on Facebook” before giving out the link.
• Give them incentives for Liking your page – Giving all your Facebook fans special discounts is an irresistible offer, especially if the trade off is only clicking on that Like button.
• Launch a contest – This one of the best ways to get people to interact with your page. In the olden days, merchants forced consumers to register to join contests as a means to collect email addresses. Now, life has become easier for consumers who fill their days with contests and surveys, all they need to do is to Like a page and they get to participate for a chance to win X prize.
• Be a genuinely interesting company to follow – Some companies don’t need to pull all the stops to get people to Like them.  If you provide relevant information to your market, you sell items that are in demand or you use your Facebook page to converse with your audience, then it will all come naturally. The people you are targeting will take an interest in your company and will Like your page simply because they find it important.

Happy selling!

What’s Better than SEO?

We’ve preached about the merits of search engine optimization in this blog countless times, even giving you specific tips on what to do with your online store to ensure that it is well-optimized and can be crawled by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

While we are still believers in the power of getting good, relevant links – if not for rankings, for bringing direct traffic to your site – there is an even better solution out there for your traffic issues. Any good SEO would tell you that content is king, and it still is. Providing unique content that your target market would appreciate has an even better value than any of the tactical marketing you’ve been brewing the past couple of months.

Good content has a way of finding itself in front of your audience, whether it is tweeted, retweeted, reposted or linked to, you can easily get people to visit your site via a well-constructed article that is worth sharing.

Remember also that algorithms constantly change. Do not focus all your energies on trying to catch up with the latest from Google. What will stay the same across any industry, any niche is for people’s inherent need for information. This is the very formula that skyrocketed social networks and review sites. People want to know about other people, so they stalk them in social media sites. People what to know what others are saying about a product, so they go to review sites. The constant need for information can be your savior when Google seems to be against every site out there that is focused on creating a million links. People will continue to look for your site to read up on the latest things or to find out more about a particular product. In this manner, you are not just creating a website to be Google’s slave, you are creating an online store that really caters to its audience.

Search engines can bring you traffic, but not necessarily sales. So, write for your audience and provide them with relevant information. The rest will follow.

Growing Your Twitter Following

Today’s world is driven by the social need. With that networks like Twitter and Facebook have grown by leaps and bounds and have surfaces as one of the most effective ways to market brands online. Over the last year, we’ve spent some time talking about the benefits of Twitter for business including what to include in your Twitter business profile page, how to build your brand via twitter and how to measure its effectiveness.

If you’ve heeded our advice and have actually jumped on the bandwagon of social network promotions, then you’re on the right track. Now, it’s time to make sure you are actually in the field of vision of your target audience. Your goal henceforth is to continuously add X number of followers for your account daily.

Like any new account, you will start with zero followers. What we want you to do to begin your journey of growing your network is to add actual people you know. Your friends and family would be glad to know more about your business and how it’s doing, so use them as your springboard to the next level. Then, widen your reach by adding your other acquaintances, business providers and suppliers would be a good start. That should give you a handful of followers to start with.

Next, concentrate on getting your Twitter url to as many legit places as possible. Display your Twitter details in your website, print it in your business card, add it in your Facebook page. The more people know about it, the better your chances of increasing your following.

Then, pay it forward. The social world works in an amusing way. You’ll find that about 10% of people you follow (be they total strangers), will follow you back. When choosing people or profiles to follow, try going for those that have something in common with your brand or even just your niche.

Check out our other articles on Twitter. You’ll soon learn that increasing your followers requires an integrated approach: building a good profile, having value-laden tweets and measuring your success.

A Note About Google Operators

Are you curious about how Google sees your website? Do you want to know if you’ve already been indexed by Google? Do you want to know how many backlinks are pointing to your online store? All these are important factors to help you achieve top website rankings. Gaining insight on them would mean you’d be able to make changes to your website to help your overall online visibility improve.

They say that the Google algorithm is a top-secret formula that is impossible to crack. They may be right about the actual mathematical equations being used to calculate positioning. However, SEOs and even the ordinary Joe can work on their website to make it climb to the top spot for their target keywords.

A way to get to know how Google views your website is to register with Google Webmaster Central. This will give you a sneak peek at how your site is doing. If Google finds some issues with your content, the report is right there to access. Coupled with some Webmaster Guideline reading and you should be on your way to success.

Yet another tool to help you get there are the Google Operators. These are simple syntax commands you can type in the search box to receive some specialized results. These will help you discover a lot of useful tidbits about your site as well as make your ability to search tenfold better.

Here are the most popular Google operators you can try:

• Site: Restricts the results to websites within a given domain. To use, type the keyword you are looking for plus the site operator. Syntax: eBay site:www.shopster.com
• link: Lists webpages that have links pointing to the specified webpage. To use, type in the link operator plus the website. Syntax: link:www.shopster.com
• allintitle: Restricts the results to those with all of the query words in the title. To use, type the allintitle operator plus the keyword. Syntax: allintitle: dropshipping bags
• intitle: Restricts the result to those with the term appearing in the title of the page. Syntax: intitle: dropshippers
• related: List web pages that are “similar” to a specified web page. Syntax: related: www.shopster.com
• allinanchor: Shows pages that has the query word as an anchor text. Syntax: allinanchor: dropshipping bags

You’ll find even more here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861

Happy searching!

Beat the Heat with a Summer Sale

  The scorching summer days are approaching. While most of the world will cringe at the thought of the heat, retailers should welcome it with open arms. Summer usually means an increase in sales for seasonal items like bathing suits, picnic items and more.

Here are some summer sale ideas to try for your online store:

1. Do a progressive stock release and price according to timeline. As soon as the first months of summer hits, people will start snapping up those items, so price your items a little bit higher at the beginning of the season and discount towards the end. In essence, pricing should follow demand.
2. Package related items. If you’re selling swimwear and sun block, put them together and a beach ball and you’ve got a Summer Special. Price it less than the total of the three items such that potential customers would see value in the purchase.
3. Hype up the summer sale months before it actually comes. If your target country’s summer begins in June, start hinting at an upcoming summer sale as early as April. Use banners, text ads and maybe even paid ads to generate buzz for it.
4. Check out the trends. Google Trends can clue you in on what’s in demand when it comes to searches for summer. But other than that, it would also be best to read up on your fashion magazines. If you’re into retail, know what the latest bikini styles are so you can do your purchasing decision confidently.

Happy selling!

Understanding What Landing Pages Are

In online marketing, a landing page is a single web page where your campaigns, promotional banners or ads “land”. This is the first thing that your visitors see that should encourage them to perform a certain action. It could be leaving their contact information, buying a product, booking in a hotel or any conversion goal set for the page.  

Landing pages are often used in email campaigns, pay per click ads and in newer platforms like social network advertising. There are two basic types of landing pages. First, are the ones that are meant to generate leads or present relevant information to the visitor. They are usually called reference landing pages. Then, we have the transactional landing pages. These are the ones that are designed to finish a sale from beginning to end. Here, the goal is to turn the visitors into buyers.

Landing pages are usually composed of images such as a hero shot or a gallery, direct sales copy, and a clear call-to-action. Images are a great way to keep your audience hooked and to curb your page’s bounce rate. However, when using it, be cautious that it doesn’t distract the your audience from the actual goal of your website.

Your copy is also critical. There are several parts to consider, first among those is your headline. As much as possible, your headline should match the ads where your visitors came from. You can also use a sub-headline to support your headline.   The body copy, on the other hand, should be your sales pitch for your product. When writing copy for landing pages, the rule of thumb abides: Keep It Short and Simple. Try using bullets or numbered lists to break long lines of text. Be direct to the point of what you are selling and talk about the benefits of your product or service.

Last, but not the least, you have your call-to-action. This is the final element in your website that funnels your visitors towards the desired action. These are buttons that say “Submit” for lead-generation landing pages or “Buy Now” for retail pages. The key to an effective call to action is to make it stand out – it could be colorful, loud or surrounded with whitespace.

 

 

 

The 4 P’s of Marketing

A lot of today’s online retailers did not learn what they know now in school. Some of them are familiar with a certain product and have geared their careers towards the sales of the said product. Others are natural-born sales people and have made a living doing just that. These entrepreneurs and self-starters may not be aware of the basic principles of marketing that would help them create a winning strategy.

So here we present the 4 P’s of Marketing:

• Product – The item you will be selling – your products and services. When creating your business plan, detail what your product or service is and how it is manufactured. Later on, you’ll see the importance of documenting these as calculating costs and feasibility to market would be much easier.
• Price – What you will be charging the customer to purchase your product. If you have different prices for each product line, jot these down. You don’t have to start off with the exact price for each item, just the price range is enough to begin with. When creating your marketing plan, you can also thing about your profit margins and how far down you can go before you start losing money on the sale.
• Promotion – How you will create awareness for your brand. Write down the tactics that you want to you for each goal. Here you can consider both offline and online marketing efforts. For instance, you can advertise in print media, distribute free samples, organize parties to introduce the product, launch a PR campaign, start advertising via Pay-Per-Click and more.
• Placement - Getting the product to market or distribution. Once you know what you want to sell, how much you want to sell it for and how you will be selling, it’s time to actually get the product out there. In this part of your marketing plan, you can detail the distribution system that you intend to you as well as your overall sales strategy. Do you intend to sell the items in your own store or do you consign it? Will you be employing a sales force or hiring a third party to do it for you?

When  creating  your first business or marketing plan, the 4 P’s can guide you in setting your objectives and actually meeting them. These concepts will keep you grounded in the field of sales and marketing.

Happy selling!