I would recommend experimenting with a few items. You can sell almost anything on eBay, but do some research before you decide what to sell. Find out how much it will cost you to buy and ship the item. You’ll also want to know if there is an audience that is buying the product and who else is selling that item on eBay. Who is your competition? Can you compete on the benefit of price, quality, speed, or product expertise?

Look for more information by looking at  eBay Pulse and keeping your eyes on current events and trends. I write this blog three times a week for GoGo Dropship. A few weeks ago I wrote a blog article on the Japanese response to the Tsunami and what businesses can learn from their example. It was not an out of the ordinary blog post. But because it was timely and the keywords used within the post got picked up by search engines,  it was on the second page of search results for a few days. I was surprised and very pleased. Keeping current, brought more eyes to my blog post, and a similar thing can happen to you on eBay if you are selling the right thing at the right time.

Keeping up with trends will also give you a competitive edge while selling online. “Early Adopters” or people that influence their friends to buy are a highly sought after group by advertisers because they know that if this group likes a product, their friends will buy it. If you come across a great product before it goes main stream and  then sell it, you’ll make a nice profit.  But if you get on the bandwagon too late, you may end up loosing money due to extra inventory. But you’ll have to experiment to know when these times are.

This concern may lead you to sell products that tend to sell almost any time during the year. Things like electronics, books, or toys.

How do I list on eBay?

If you are curious about the actual eBay listing process, take a look at this helpful eBay video.

Ebay has other great videos on everything from shipping to taking pictures here.

As long as you’re willing to invest the time it takes to list, take pictures of your product, and ship it or drop ship it, then you’re ready to sell.

What should I do with my unsold items?

Remember to be patient. When you don’t have a feedback score it may take some time for people to trust buying from you. I like this list of tips on what to do if your items don’t sell. Don’t worry, in most cases if your items don’t sell, you can re-list them for free. If you can’t re-list them for some reason, consider selling them on many of the free classified websites or donate them.

What if I lose money?

It’s important to start small and get the hang of listing on eBay before you invest a lot in your business. I’m starting with used items, that if I can’t get a lot for won’t hurt me too bad. I will practice listing, selling, and shipping these items before I start investing more money into my business. Besides, when you first begin without feedback you may have to compensate for your lack of feedback by offering killer deals.

Any new business involves some faith, work, and experimenting. Do your research, find out what works for you, and don’t give up. EBay won’t be a complete gamble if you keep these things in mind. Of course, like everything else in life, most good things come with practice, so don’t be afraid to make a few mistakes along the way!

This rat was huge! It’s massive size fooled me. But as it climbed into the storm drain I shivered. Yuck! The differences between a kitten and a rat are innumerable. But the dark, the size, and it coming out from under a car like cats do, had contributed to my misjudgment.

Sometimes a lot like my “kitten” that was really a rat, deals cross our paths that look pretty common-place or maybe even appealing. As entrepreneurs we may even approach an opportunity with interest only to find out that the opportunity is a rat. It looked good, but up close was really something else, maybe even something sketchy.

This is a reminder to approach drop shipping with caution, there are a lot of rats out there.

So how do you find a legitimate company?

1. Be observant. Paying attention to details and your feelings will help you spot the rats.

Last night I was applying for jobs and spotted what seemed like a great job opportunity that paid well. It seemed too good to be true, but I really wanted it to be real. I began the application process, but using caution provided my junk e-mail address on the form. I filled out more of the form and they asked for my social security number.

That seemed like awfully personal information to be giving out on a form on a web page the looked ancient and possibly fake. Some of the information they wanted seemed to personal for a job application, so I left the site. I got an e-mail 5 minutes later that encouraged me to apply and listed an e-mail address that led me nowhere. That settled it for me. They were trying to scam me. I’m glad I trusted my gut and quit filling out the application.

Just as the dragging tail observation  made me reconsider what I saw in the street, the request for such personal information upfront caused me to question the trustworthiness of the site. Pay attention to how you feel about services and if something seems off, do some more investigation before proceeding.

2.Be willing to take a closer look. Are the costs associated  with the product or service fair? “What does their user agreement say? Thankfully most companies have user agreements you can review. Do yourself the service of scanning through it to see if anything sounds fishy. Think about the risks involved. Does it have strong enough benefit to counter balance the risk involved? What kind of profit margin exists for the product or how much will you make after you take out all the selling, shipping, and handling expenses? Does it seem fair?

There are several businesses built around drop shipping these days. There are services that act as a middleman and do almost all of the work for you, but then dip deeply into your profits to pay for their services.  Then there are complete scams that take your money and never provide a service. But there are also honest drop ship directories. These directories provide you with legitimate supplier information at a low cost. Beware of the directories that promise you information for “free.”

Look at the services a company really offers and then make your decision. You may want a middleman, but don’t pay for one if what you really want is a drop ship directory.

Northeast Coffee Company
Nantucket Brand
Swimsuits for All
Fat Brain Toy Co.
P&S Fishing Tackle, Inc.
Tire Wholesalers
Bait N’ Hook
American Recreation Equipment, Inc.
Karate Depot
Handbag Crew
Bargain Wholesaler
Dog Supplies
RMF Scrubs LLC
Allegro Medical Supplies Inc.
All Authentic Sports Memorabilia
Wholesale Gifts Direct
Sport Supply Group
Puppia International Inc.
ATAFA
Alternative Healthcare
Vitamix Laboratories

For more information about dropshipping or to sign up for a package or a free trial (no credit card required), please visit GoGo Dropship.

Some of you might be wondering how a wholesale price could ever stack up poorly against retail price. We’d talked previously about this phenomenon, and this is definitely one instance where we’re seeing first-hand the effect this concept has with us and our business.

Without being willing to carry inventory, our only recourse is to research the effectiveness of our supplier prior to creating a website where we will utilize them. This way if we see that our supplier will not be effective price-wise, we can turn around and look for an alternate supplier, or even an alternate niche, before we’ve passed the point of no return and created a site.

There are a few website tools that we can utilize to do this. First and foremost we have the Google Product Search, a tool powered, aptly enough, by Google that will allow us to see what people are pricing our specific item on online, utilizing the power of the Google search engine to give us a very good picture into all the available products out there. Conveniently accompanied by images, and with the ability to sort by price, Froogle is one of the easier ways to see what our competitors are pricing their same items at, to see if there’s room to be competitive.

A second resource I like to utilize is PriceGrabber. This website functions quite the same way as Froogle, but it gives us a different system for pulling their results, which in turn gives us an even more complete view of what our competitors are doing.

This is all well and good, you may be thinking, but how do we make sense of all this information? We can see the prices, big whoop. How does this help us? Are we supposed to try and see if we can be the lowest price? Do we just want to see the highest price and price our items accordingly?

Our goal in doing this research using these sites is to see where the price extremes are, both high and low, and find a median fair price. We don’t want to try to be the lowest; someone can always get a better discount than us, and someone is always willing to undercut us, even at their own peril. We can briefly flirt with being the lowest price out there, but it simply isn’t something feasible to try to sustain.

At the same time, we do want to make sure we’re not the highest. If we’re the highest, than it is quite probable that people will utilize many of the same tools that we can to see that there are cheaper alternatives out there, which they will most likely go with. For that reason, our goal is to find a fair price that lies between those extremes, and price ourselves there.

However, this is not so simple a thing as seeing where our supplier’s price is, and just gauging things that way. We want to make money after all, so we need to make sure that we are basing these numbers off of our supplier’s price plus our profit margin. Typically a new business owner should try and shoot for a 30% profit margin, which roughly translates into a $15-$20 per item profit.

This may seem like a lot of extra leg work, but if we can find out whether or not our supplier is effective before creating our site around them, we can be much more confident moving forward with the knowledge that we can be priced effectively, and expect many more sales as a result.

For more information, please visit GoGo Dropship.

There are a lot of scams circulating their way around the business world right now. So much in fact that it’s becoming nearly impossible to find any one company that is trustworthy and ethical all at the same time (apparently there’s now a difference between the two). Someone once told me that in order to be in business, a person must be shady in some way or another; I submit that they are wrong! I know there are still companies out there that strive to give their customers the best and most fulfilling experience possible. I know this, because I work for one of them.

GoGo Dropship is dedicated to finding the strengths in each employee so they may be of more service to our customers. The people I work with are regular people like you and me. They struggle with various aspects of life and have financial worries just like you; it is this common adversity of life that helps us understand what you’re going through. At GoGoDropship, we’re not just anyone, we’re your neighbors, we’re your family, we’re your friends. We know how tough life can be, we can’t do everything for you but we can teach you and make starting a business a little easier for you.

In order to prevent such failure, always contact the dropship companies you intend to work with before assuming that they dropship the particular product you want to sell. When you contact wholesale dropship companies, make sure that you also ask about any fees associated with drop shipping with that supplier before you get in too deep.

Some of the fees associated with dropship companies are price mark-up, same price, and monthly fee. A price mark-up occurs when the wholesaler marks up the product after getting it from the manufacturer. A second way to charge a fee is by selling the product for the price they were able to get it from the wholesaler but then charging a fee for each time a product is drop shipped. A third way is to be charged a monthly fee and then you can sell the product as often as you wish that month at the price of the wholesaler, without any extra fee associated with it. The dropship companies you’re working with may use all or none of these fees. If they use all of them, the chances of making a profit off the products are very low.

I cannot stress enough, the importance of contacting the dropship companies in advance. You would never want to post something on eBay, for example, and make a sale only to find out that the dropship companies you are dealing with plan to charge you extra fees. For more information please visit GoGo Dropship.

Let me remind you, however, that gauntlets are only for those with the right tools. Without them, you will surely fall short of your objective, which can be fatal. Any good knight wouldn’t dare go through the gauntlet without armor just as a business man or woman should never form dropship companies without the use of a drop ship directory.

When you are standing on the platform and don’t know how you are ever going to make it to the other side, remember that GoGo Dropship has qualified experts standing by to assist you and fit you with the tools necessary for success.

There have always been times of vast opportunities. Perhaps the opportunities have changed a little over time but the number of them has not. Opportunity is created through effort so who is to say you cannot succeed by drop shipping on eBay using dropship companies. Give it a shot; we have proof at www.gogodropship.com that profit can be made through the use of eBay and good dropship companies.

Live your dream of being an entrepreneur by starting off selling on eBay and see what happens. You can’t lose anything by using dropship companies; you don’t even have any inventory to worry about. All you need to do is set up an eBay account, find a good dropship company to set up an account with, and start selling on eBay. Of course, as in all business, you are going to want to communicate with the companies you’re working with and keep that contact open. Always make sure the company has inventory in stock and that they can drop ship that inventory to your customers, before you list the product on eBay. Dropshipping on ebay is merely a way to put forth effort to get yourself on the road to success, your destination is up to you.

With GoGo Dropship, if you sign up for the Premium Package, you also get to put in requests to the Product Research Team. These requests are designed so that all the customer has to do is put in a research request on a certain product and the Product Research Team will find suppliers of that product and send them to you within one to three business days.

When selecting your product niche, make sure that the niche is not so specific that it is next to impossible to drop ship. For example, Nike brand swim goggles would not be a good product niche to try to drop ship because it is too specific. Name brand items are harder to find drop shippers for because these companies prefer to sell to brick and mortar companies who can purchase in bulk. It would be best to request swim goggles so that you get a better variety of swim goggles to choose from.

We all have dreams and aspirations, for me it was laying eyes on those billy goats, for you it may be owning a successful business by using a dropship directory. Just like the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff came to life for me, finding a good dropship directory can help you bring your own story to life.

Luckily, finding a great dropship directory is not as difficult as finding those billy goats. All you really need to do is a little bit of research to examine the pro’s and con’s. GoGo Dropship, for example, has excellent customer service, a Product Research Team, an eBay Sellers Report, and a 7 day free trial, among other features. If you want to, you could sign up for the free trial dropship directory from GoGo Dropship to see how it works.

Give it a shot, remember what it was like to be a kid, and follow your dream of being an entrepreneur and owning your own business.