Hi Dave,
Yes, this IS the biggest thing that will do it for you..
I am looking at this auction:
OK, you see how it is a lot of you $1 auctions sell?
Check it out man.. Why not just raise the shipping cost to $1.99? You will make DOUBLE the profit right there!
Shoot, if it were me, I would be charging like $5.99 on the shipping and had the price at $0.99..
But, maybe I am just smoking crack..
I can tell you, the idea is to think like a greedy person, even though you are not
one..
Actually a better way to look at it is just to imagine like you have insurmountable bills and you need the cash.. Sometimes we need motivation to take the leap..
YES, if I was selling this, I would do something like $0.99 + $5.99 S&H.. Maybe $0.99 + $4.99 on the conservative side..
DUDE, you also are the only one selling this.. Man, I would DEFINITELY raise the shipping..
Look at your shipping as your profit..
The price, 99 cents, is to pay for your cost of buying it.. $1.30 from the shipping cost are for you to ship it and for FeeBay's fees..
The rest is your profit.. So, make it as high as withstandable..
Try my idea.. You will see that it sells.. Matter of fact, you will probably sell just as many..
ALSO, it is IMPORTANT to make your ad longer.. Its too short.. Make it longer.. Trust me on this.. If you can, indicate your selling terms, return terms, more description, etc..
Look at one of my auctions for reference:
Check the shipping cost on it.. Your product is the same kind of thing.. Its a small cheap item.. Crank the shipping and you will definitely be making the money!
I would CRANK all of your shipping costs on all of your auctions.. With the more expensive items, flip the price over into the shipping..
This will work for the lures also.. You can even PENNY the lures if you have to.. Then put in the title its a PENNY.. Then crank the shipping to whatever is reasonable... Reasonable is your cost + your profit..
SO TO WRAP IT UP. DO THIS FOR ME AND I AM POSITIVE YOU WILL MAKE MORE:
1. Lengthen your ad. Ad stuff like I have .. Condition section, Terms of Sales Section, Shipping Method Section, etc..
2. Crank the shipping cost and move the price more into the shipping..
Thats it..
Sincerely
Tony
DAVE RICE <ospika@aaaa.net> wrote:
Tony;
Thanks for your reply. You can see all of my auctions at
http://stores.ebay.com/OspikaGear I have 240 listings up at the moment. They
range in price from $1.00 to $239.00. My theme or niche if you will is
fishing, hunting and camping gear.
My cost of goods varies. The fishing lure parts come from a fishing lure
company I bought a few years ago and have been unable to really sell the
lures, but the parts seem to be in demand. I paid $10,000 and ended up with
20,000 lures and enough parts and packaging for another 10,000 lures.
The fishing flies I import from a very good tier in Sri Lanka. The flies are
first rate and are selling at Baileys in MT for $1.89 each. I am selling them
at $5.99 per dozen including shipping. I started selling them at $3.99 plus
shipping. When I raised my price sales started dropping.
Everything else comes from two or three sellers. One
supplier has 22,000
items, and is very reliable as a dropshipper. My problem with him is that I
have to watch his inventory list closely. If an item goes out of stock it is 3
to 6 weeks to get it. Also he will only ship in the US or to me. I have buyers
all over the world. His pricing is on average retail less 40% to 50%.
The second supplier has about 600 items and keeps urging me to market his
complete line of products. The problem again is that he will only ship in the
US and most times when I have had him dropship things the item has ended up
here.
The third supplier is local and has a pretty good stock of about 1500 items. I
have lately noticed that I have been testing his stock levels. I am able to
sell things in his product lines eg. maglite that he hasn't in past had to
carry stock of. Again his pricing is about 40% to 50% off retail and anything
I order he gets to me within 2 business days. He doesn't
dropship.
I have a web site that generally just annoys me. I had it on Monster Commerce
for over a year. But it was through an affiliate arrangement. This arrangement
got cancelled. At the time the site was getting 400 visits per day and no
sales. It was easy to maintain and monitor. At the cancellation, I moved the
site to ProStores because of their ties to Ebay. The traffic immediately
dropped to 20 visits per day. and no sales. On ProStores the site is very
difficult to change, and when you do make changes it won't accept or publish
them. It has stock and process orders but there are no orders. It is at
http://www.ospikagear.com.
So there you have it. Dave Rice in a nutshell. I spend my days maintaining the
200 to 300 listings on Ebay, packing things for shipment, going to the post
office, and looking for ways to make all of this work properly. It should
work, shouldn't it?
Dave Rice
