About the Book
REMEMBER WHEN eBay USED TO BE A GREAT PLACE FOR SMALL SELLERS TO BECOME BIG SELLERS?
Unfortunately, recent changes at eBay have made online auctions less reliable and profitable. So where can you sell when you can't sell on eBay? Online auctions are the past; fixed-price selling is the future. It's time to move beyond eBay and first-generation online selling and start Selling Online 2.0. Second generation online selling means migrating from eBay to other online marketplaces, including craigslist, Amazon, and your own e-commerce website. You'll need to make some new plans, learn some new skills, and change some of the things you do--but you'll find that there's more money to be made on your own than relying on traditional eBay online auction sales.
- Put together a plan to maintain your sales level and profitability--to counteract eBay's changes
- Discover how to shift from auction sales to fixed-priced listings on the eBay marketplace
- Find out if running an eBay Store or selling on Half.com makes sense for your business
- Learn out how to sell locally on craigslist and other online classifieds sites
- Discover how to sell fixed-price merchandise on the Amazon marketplace
- Find out how to launch your own e-commerce website--and promote your online store
- Learn how to sell products across multiple channels--and manage multichannel conflicts
Introduction 1 What's in This Book 2 Who Can Use This Book 3 How to Use This Book 3 There's More Online... 4 Making the Move 4
I BEYOND ONLINE AUCTIONS: CREATING A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE BUSINESS 5 1 The Problem with Online Auctions 7 What eBay
Used to Be Like... 7 Why Is eBay Abandoning Smaller Sellers? 10 Changes Are Afoot--and You Probably Won't Like Them 12 Emphasizing Fixed-Price Sales over Auction Sales 12 Changes to the Fee Structure 12 Changes to the Payment System 14 Changes to the Feedback System 15 Changes to Search Results 15 eBay's Deal with Buy.com 16 How Do eBay's Changes Affect You? 16
2 Planning for Selling Success 19 Planning for Life Beyond eBay Auctions 19 Asking--and Answering--Key Questions 20 What Type of Merchandise Do You Want to Sell? 20 How Much Money Do You Want to Make? 21 How Do You Intend to Manage Your Business? 23 Where Do You Want to Sell? 25 Conceiving a Business Plan 26 Understanding the Components of a Useful Business Plan 28 Mission 29 Opportunity 30 Strategy 30 Organization and Operations 31 Strengths and Weaknesses 31 Financials 31 Writing Your Business Plan 32 Implementing Your Business Plan 33
II FIXED-PRICE SELLING ON EBAY 35 3 Migrating to Fixed-Price Listings 37 Why Fixed-Priced Sales Are the Way to Go 37 Comparing Fees 38 Comparing Listing Lengths 40 Factoring in Customer Demand 41 Different Ways to Sell at a Fixed Pric 42 Understanding eBay's Fixed-Price Listings 43 Understanding eBay's Buy It Now Auctions 44 Understanding eBay Stores 46 Understanding Half.com 47 Creating an eBay Fixed-Price Listing 50 Creating an Auction Listing with a Buy It Now Price 51 Managing Fixed-Price Sales 52 Before the Sale: Setting the Price 53 After the Sale: Payment and Shipping 53
4 Fixed-Price Selling in an eBay Store 57 What Is an eBay Store? 57 Benefits of Opening Your Own eBay Store 59 Challenges of eBay Store Selling 60 Understanding eBay Store Subscription Levels 61 Understanding Insertion Fees and FVFs 63 How to Open an eBay Store 63 Further Customizing Your eBay Store 67 Managing Your eBay Store 68 Listing Merchandise for Sale in Your eBay Store 70 Handling eBay Store Sales 71 Marking Down Your Merchandise 72 Viewing eBay Store Reports 73
5 Fixed-Price Selling on Half.com 77 Getting to Know Half.com 77 Understanding the Half.com Shopping Experience 79 Understanding Half.com Fees 80 Listing on Half.com 81 Pricing Your Half.com Items 83 Calculating Shipping and Handling Charges 84 Managing Half.com Sales 85
6 Promoting Your Fixed-Price eBay Sales 87 Promoting Your Fixed-Price Listings on the eBay Site 87 Optimizing Your Listings for eBay Search 88 Linking from Other Sites to Your eBay Listings 90 Promoting Your eBay Store 90 Seeding Listings into the Traditional eBay Marketplace 91 Enabling Cross-Promotions 91 Creating an Email Mailing List 92 Linking to Your eBay Store 94 Adding a Stores Widget to Your Blog or Website 95 Creating a Listing Feed 95 Exporting Your Listings to Search Engines and Shopping Sites 96 Advertising on the eBay Site with AdCommerce 97 Advertising Across the Web with Google AdWords 99 Promoting Your Store in the Real World 101 Promoting Your Half.com Listings 102
III SELLING VIA CRAIGSLIST ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS 105 7 Online Classifieds: Are They Right for Your Business? 107 Understanding Online Classifieds 107 Examining Major Online Classifieds Sites 110 craigslist 110 Oodle 111 Kijiji 113 backpage.com 114 LiveDea 115 Google Base 116 The Pros and Cons of Selling via Online Classifieds 117 Pros of Online Classifieds Selling 117 Cons of Online Classifieds Selling 118 Do Online Classifieds Make Sense for Your Business? 120 The Best Businesses for Migrating to Online Classifieds 120 The Worst Businesses for Migrating to Online Classifieds 121
8 Doing Business on craigslist 125 Understanding craigslist 125 Navigating craigslist Listings 126 Before You List... 129 Listing an Item for Sale 130 Formatting Your Item Description 133 Using HTML Formatting 133 Inserting Images into Your Listings 134 Managing Your Listings 135 Editing a Listing 135 Deleting a Listing 136 Making a Sale 136
9 Migrating from Online Auctions to Online Classifieds 139 What Items Should You Move to craigslist? 139 Changing Your Business Model 141 Going Local 141 Pickups, No Shipping 142 Cash Is King 143 We Don't Need No Stinking Tools 143 It's the Wild West 144 Businesses Aren't Always Accepted 144 Making the Move 145
10 Promoting Your craigslist Business 147 Choosing the Right Community and Category 147 Optimizing Your Listings for Search 148 Keeping Your Ad at the Top of the List 148
IV SELLING ON THE AMAZON MARKETPLACE 151 11 The Amazon Marketplace: Is It Right for Your Business? 153 Understanding the Amazon Marketplace 153 What the Buyers See 154 The Many Ways to Sell on Amazon 156 Selling Individual Items on the Amazon Marketplace 157 Understanding the Amazon Marketplace 158 Understanding Amazon's Fees 159 Selling as a Pro Merchant 161 Selling on Amazon via Selling on Amazon 162 Selling in an Amazon WebStore 163 Using Amazon to Fulfill Your Orders 163 How It Works 164 Understanding Fulfillment Pricing 164 The Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon 166 Selling on Amazon: Pros 166 Selling on Amazon: Cons 167
12 Doing Business in the Amazon Marketplace 169 Listing Individual Items in the Amazon Marketplace 169 Listing Your First Item 69 Managing Your Account and Inventory 173 Selling an Item 175 Setting Up Your Amazon Storefront 176 Moving to the Pro Merchant Program 177 Upgrading to Pro Merchant Status 177 Uploading Multiple Listings 178 Creating a Product Detail Page 180
13 Migrating Your eBay Business to Amazon 185 Does Migrating to Amazon Make Sense? 85 Comparing Fees 185 Comparing Sales and Effort 187 Which Items Should You Migrate? 188 Evolving Your Business Model 189 Making the Move 190
14 Promoting Your Amazon Business 193 Keeping Your Listings Competitive 193 Competing on Feedback 194 Placing Product Ads on the Amazon Site 196 Advertising Your Business with a Display Ad 197
V SELLING ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE 201 15 Establishing Your Own Website: Is It Right for Your Business? 203 Building an Online Store--What's Involved? 203 The Components of an E-Commerce Website 203 Different Ways to Build a Store 206 How Much Does It Cost? 207 Pros and Cons of Running Your Own Website 208 Pros of Running Your Own Online Store 208 Cons of Running Your Own Online Store 209 Does an Online Store Make Sense for Your Business? 211
16 Planning Your Online Presence 215 Step One: Create Your Plan and Define Your Goals 215 Step Two: Determine What You're Selling 216 Step Three: Choose a Hosting Service 216 Step Four: Build Your Website 217 Step Five: Choose an Online Payment Service 218 Step Six: Plan Your Promotion 219 Step Seven: Launch Your Site 220 Step Eight: Evaluate Your Performance 221
17 Setting Up an E-Commerce Website 223 Choosing a Hosting Service 223 Features to Look For 224 Comparing Prices 226 Using eBay ProStores 227 ProStores for eBay Sellers 227 Subscription Levels 228 Getting Started with ProStores 229 Building an Amazon WebStore Store 230 Inside an Amazon WebStore Store 230 Creating Your Own WebStore 231 Building a Yahoo! Merchant Website 233 Subscription Levels 233 Unique Features 234 Creating Your Own Yahoo! Store 235 Exploring Other Pre-Designed Storefronts 236
18 Managing Online Sales 241 Managing Your Inventory 241 Managing Your Sales 243 Managing Your Customers 245
19 Choosing an Online Payment System 249 Accepting Payments with PayPal 249 Pros and Cons of PayPal 250 Signing Up for PayPal 251 Understanding PayPal Fees 252 Adding PayPal to Your Website 253 Collecting PayPal Payments 254 Accepting Payments with Google Checkout 255 Pros and Cons of Google Checkout 255 Understanding Google Checkout Fees 256 Setting Up a Google Checkout Account 257 Choosing a Google Checkout Service 257 Adding Google Checkout to Your Website 258 Collecting Google Checkout Payments 259 Withdrawing Google Checkout Funds 260 Integrating Google Checkout with Google AdWords 260 Accepting Payments with Checkout by Amazon 261 Pros and Cons of Checkout by Amazon 261 Understanding Checkout by Amazon Fees 262 Setting Up Checkout by Amazon 262 Establishing Your Own Merchant Credit Card Account 263 Pros and Cons of a Merchant Account 264 Choosing a Credit Card Processor 265
20 Promoting Your E-Commerce Website 267 Putting Together a Marketing Plan 267 Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines 269 All About Search Engine Marketing--and SEO 269 SEO Tip #1: Fine-Tune Your Keywords 269 SEO Tip #2: Tweak Your and Tags 271 SEO Tip #3: Solicit Inbound Links from Other Sites 271 SEO Tip #4: Submit Your Site to the Major Search Engines 272 SEO Tip #5: Use Text Instead of Images 274 Submitting Your Products to Comparison Shopping Sites 275 How Comparison Shopping Sites Work 275 Examining the Major Comparison Shopping Sites 276 Submitting Your Listings to Comparison Shopping Sites 278 Creating and Uploading a Data File 279 Buying PPC Advertising 280 How Important Is PPC Advertising? 280 Purchasing Keywords 281 Paying by the Click 282 Evaluating the Big PPC Ad Networks 283 Creating a PPC Campaign 285 Buying Display Ads 286 Engaging in Email Marketing 287 Marketing on YouTube 288 Marketing to the Blogosphere 289 Conducting Online Public Relations 290
21 Migrating Your eBay Business to Your Own Website 293 Does Migrating to Your Own Online Store Make Sense? 293 Comparing Costs 293 Comparing Effort 295 Which Items Should You Migrate? 295 Changing Your Business Model and Processes 296 Making the Move 297
22 Selling in Multiple Channels 301 What Is Multichannel Selling--and How Does It Work? 301 Pros and Cons of Multichannel Selling 302 Benefits of Multichannel Selling 302 Drawbacks of Multichannel Selling 303 When Does Multichannel Selling Make Sense--and When Is It a Recipe for Disaster? 305 Managing Inventory Across Channels 306 Creating a Multichannel Marketing Plan 307
Index 311 About the Author:
Michael Miller has written more than 90 nonfiction how-to books over the past two decades, including Que's
Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, Making a Living from Your eBay Business, and
Tricks of the eBay Business Masters. He also wrote
Teach Yourself Business Plans in 24 Hours and
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Search Engine Optimization for Alpha Books and
Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus for Wiley. Mr. Miller has established a reputation for clearly explaining complex topics to the average reader and for offering useful real-world advice. Find more information at his website, www.molehillgroup.com.
