Archive

Hello Again,
I have to admit that apart from my regular Buy It Now products, which I keep more or less permanently on eBay, I have not been very active this month. Of course I have been busy planning the Workshop for next month, which takes quite a bit of time. The other reason is that along with my IT expert Tim we have been busy developing one or two new products to sell through online auctions and our web site.

As you might expect I subscribe to a good many newsletters and publications from around the world relating to Auctions. Some are obviously better than others but there is one that for me stands out above them all. It is an American based newsletter called Auction Bytes that is run by a charming lady called Ina Steiner assisted I believe by her husband David. I have not yet met her but we have communicated by e-mail and she has been really helpful to me. Although the news is very much US based she does include any items relevant to eBay.co.uk. I have no affiliate links with Ina and this is a genuine recommendation.( Not that all my recommendation are not genuine. If I cannot say something good about a product I just don't say anything) If you would like to go and have a look at her web site and subscribe to the newsletter go to www.auctionbytes.com.

There seems to be no limit to the number of new auction sites coming on line. I have received notification of 2 new ones this week. The first is 121bid.co.uk which is a well laid out site that already has nearly 200 members. It is a general site but at the moment its strongest category appears to be computers. The second auction site is at www.hotbids.co.uk. This site launched by John Everton does not at present have very many items for sale but no doubt it will grow in the coming months. Both these new sites are offering no cost listing and presumably are relying on advertising and listing enhancement fees for their profit.

Another thing that I noticed was that both the new auction sites have included a Forum. (It seems to be the rage). However, people do not seem to be using them. On our own forum I have only had one posting over the last couple of weeks. I find it hard to believe that with a subscription base the size of ours readers do not have questions or points they would like to raise. If you send me an e-mail all you get is my opinion, if you post your question to the forum you have the combined brain power of all of our subscribers. Now isn’t that a frightening thought?
I hope you enjoy this issue.

Dave Bromley

Contents:
1. Drop Shipping
2. 121bid.co.uk
3. Extra Reading
4. Final Thoughts

Drop Shipping

The main subject that I am going to deal with in this issue is Dropshipping. As well as this article I have also devoted the audio tutorial to this subject. The reason for this is because the interest in this form of auction selling has proved popular in the USA and there are now signs of growing interest here.

Dropshipping is a process of selling products without having the physical item yourself. You list an item at a price of your choice and when you get a sale you send the customers details and an agreed amount to a drop ship customer who ship the item directly to your customer. Your profit is the difference between what you sell then item for and what you pay the drop shipper for it.

This can give you a very inexpensive method of building up a portfolio of products to sell in online auctions without having to purchase, store and package the items. I have to admit that I have always been a little wary of dropshipping because my main concern is that if anything goes wrong it will be you getting the brickbats and complaints. But having said that in the USA it has proved a very successful way of doing business and no doubt it will be the same here.

I will talk more in detail on the audio program but in this article I will look at some of the companies in the UK who provide a dropship service.

http://www.atsdistribution.co.uk
A one off payment of £20 and you get complete access to 100's of images of PC and console accessories. I believe that after successful registration you receive stock to the value of your fee so in fact this would mean it costs you nothing to join but check this with the company.

http://www.wholesaleknives.co.uk
No membership fee. This appears to be a relative newcomer to the market.
Offers a wide range of interesting knife related items.

http://freebiephones.2U.co.uk
No Set Up Fee. Offers a range of mobile phones.
It also has a very good and comprehensive web site.

http://www.bjdropship.co.uk
Fashion Jewellery & Watches from low, low prices. Top-Quality makes including 9ct,18ct Gold & Diamonds

http://www.dropshipper.co.uk
Concentrates mainly on Gadgets, Toys, Games and Magic Tricks. But by becoming a member, (Costs £24.99) you also get access to other Dropship companies as well.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of dropshippers. To find more try a search on Google or Ask Jeeves for “UK Drop Shippers”. Another alternative is to read my friend Brian McGregor’s excellent e-book on UK Dropshipping.
For more details read "UK Dropshipping Sources"

Disclaimer: I have to be honest and admit that I have not personally used any of these companies and so therefore they are included purely for information purposes. Inclusion in this article should not be taken as a recommendation or otherwise for any company.

To learn more about Dropshipping I would recommend that you get hold of a copy of UK Dropshipping Sources

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I have just received details of new auction site 121bid.co.uk.

This is another site that offers free basic listings and no final valuation fees. There are charges for enhancements but each person who registers automatically gets £10 credited to their account which they can use to offset these. Also each member who refers a friend gets £5 automatically credited to their account, which they can use for enhanced listing fees. The friend must register within 30 days and then of course they also gets £10 for registering.

There is no affiliate program with 121bid.co.uk, but by referring friends to the site you can build up credits to offset any future enhanced listings.

The site owner tells me that this is British owned and set up in opposition to the auction sites which charge extortionate fees to buy and sell. He will be extremely happy just to make enough to cover his hosting fees each month.

The site is already listed in Alexa as being in the top 150k sites in the world (out of millions of sites ) which is pretty impressive. 121bid.co.uk has already had almost 1/4 million visitors to the site within the first few weeks. This could be due to a catchy auction name and the fact that the site is registered with all the major search engines.

With over 200 registered members the site is linked to its sister site in the USA which means that sellers can offer their products to a wider audience. The site has already met with some success having sold a £4000 item in recent weeks.

As always we like to support all UK auction sites and why not go and give it a try.

121bid.co.uk

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The Audio Tutorial - Dropshipping

"eBay Provides A Way For Any Entrepreneur
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eBay have announced several new features and enhancements to the item page. These enhancements include many changes that have been requested by eBay users. Some of the enhancements include:

Prominent indication of where a seller will post to - The regions to which a seller will post items will be displayed above the item description.

Improved Confirmation screens - Separate pages for Bidding and Buy It Now confirmation will be implemented to make them load faster; in addition, the Bidding Confirmation screen will have a "Check Status" feature available to the high bidder if 60 minutes or fewer remain in the listing to help them easily return to the item page.

Enhanced Bid History - The email address and location of the high bidder will be available to the seller from the Bid History page.

Start Time - The time the listing started will be indicated at the top of the item page. Larger font - Increased text size improves legibility for many members.

Printer-Friendly mode - A new printer-friendly feature, located at the bottom of the page, will offer a quick, efficient way to print the item page with page-breaks included and buttons and the status box removed. Email this item to a friend - This will be updated to be more consistent with other forms on the site, and will remain in its current location.

Finally there is a postal strike in Southern Ireland at the moment so if you have customers in that part of the world it may be possible that payments and deliveries may be delayed. Please have patience.

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