Be realistic when selling on eBay....

As some of you know, I spent many years buying and selling both on and offline and several of my products are based upon my own experience in this area. I know that the vast majority of my customers and subscribers have an interest in trading whether it is on eBay or at the local market but more and more I am seeing people with completely unrealistic expectations of what they will be able to do. Most commonly these unrealistic expectations are in respect of how much it actually costs to purchase specific products and what they can then be sold on for.

I regularly get emails from people who want to know where they can purchase products such as mobile (cell) phones, new release DVDs, Playstation games and similar at, say, a 50% discount to resell on eBay. The fact is that such a thing is not available - it is a simple case of supply and demand and competition.

Take DVDs for example, most people think that these are excellent products to resell on eBay because they are very popular, not particularly expensive and easy to package and ship. Unfortunately, they could not be more wrong. The DVD market is one of the most competitive that there is - take a look for yourself and see how many auctions there are on eBay for DVDs at any one time. I have just looked and counted almost 300,000! At any one time there will only be a certain number of buyers wanting to purchase a particular DVD and if you take into account the numerous different places there are that each buyer could purchase from, it is likely that in general, there will be more copies of an individual DVD available than there are buyers to purchase them. This situation causes prices to fall. The other factor that forces prices down is the fact that one DVD is the same as another. By this I mean that from a buyer’s point of view, there is no difference to a new DVD purchased on eBay to one which is purchased from their local DVD store. Often the only way to differentiate is on price and of course, the only way to make the price more attractive to a buyer is to lower it.

The above reasons help to explain why the wholesale discount on a new release DVD is just £1 or £2 at most ($2 or $3 roughly in the US). When you take into account the fact that the large retail chains can purchase thousands of DVDs at a time and receive a bigger discount than individual traders, you soon see why it is very difficult for a small business to compete in such a competitive industry. You simply cannot purchase new release DVDs at 50% discount and even if you could, it wouldn't be long before prices were forced down as there is always someone willing to sell a little bit cheaper than the next man.

It isn't just DVDs that fall into this category. Take mobile (cell) phones. Here in the UK you can walk down just about any high street and get the latest phones either free or for a minimal token payment. The stores are relying on making their money from the line rental contract that you will have to sign in order to get the phone. Of course, the actual cost of the phone is not free - most new mobiles are actually worth £200 or £300 which means that if you want to buy a batch of phones at wholesale, you are going to be looking at a pretty high unit cost. As with most electrical products, the market is competitive and prices have been forced down which means that the difference between your wholesale buying price and your retail selling price is minimal.

There are numerous products that suffer from the same market conditions as DVDs and phones and new/small traders really should avoid trying to sell such items at all costs because it will usually be frustrating and ultimately not financially rewarding. When trying to decide what products to sell, you need to be thinking about the type of market that a particular product is sold in. If there are already numerous sellers and many large companies selling at considerable discounts this is far from ideal. The exception to the rule is if you are able to add value in some way to make your 'offering' more unique. I wrote about adding value last year in one of my newsletters - you can read it here: http://www.thetraderonline.com/jul2204.html

at the end of the day, it is all about research, being realistic and having an understanding of the market that you want to operate in. Whilst it would be great to be able to buy and sell new release DVDs (or whatever) all day long, doubling your money every time, I am afraid that this is just not going to happen.

About the Author

http://www.youradsenseprofits.com

How the Retailers Make you an Impulsive Buyer

There are always shopping carts.These have a huge bin compared with the size of most items for sale in the store, making it psychologically easy to toss in an item you don't need.Desirable departments are far away from the entrance.Most of the items you go to a department store to buy, such as light bulbs and laundry detergent, are located many, many aisles from the entrance.This means you spend your time walking by a lot of consumer goods on your way to find the item you want.

Impulse-oriented items are near the checkouts.Stores stock the latest DVD releases and glamour magazines there, along with overpriced beverages and candy.Because people leaving the store are thirsty, and they're going to be standing in line for a bit, which is the perfect place to entice them with some entertainment options.

The most expensive versions of a product are the ones at eye level.Take a look sometime at the arrangement of different choices for a particular product, such as laundry detergent.Almost every time, the most expensive options per unit are placed at eye level, so you see them first when you enter an aisle.The bulk options and better deals are usually on the bottom shelves.Items that aren't on sale are sometimes placed as though they are on sale, without using the word sale with a huge sign above them displaying the price, but it would be the same price you paid for them a week ago..

Commodity items, such as socks, are surrounded by non-commodity items, such as shirts and jeans.If you are looking to buy some socks, you have to traverse through a number of racks full of different types of clothing in the clothing section just to reach them.

If your mind is already open to the idea of buying clothes, you would be more likely to look at other clothing items.

Attractively packaged items are placed between less slickly packaged items.Look carefully at an aisle of, say, potato chips.The ones with the bright and slick packaging are generally more expensive, which isn't surprising.But notice that there usually isn't a section of just inexpensive chips.In most stores, they're sandwiched between more expensive items.If there is a section of just inexpensive items, they're much below the rack.Stores are designed to maximize the number of stops you have to make: aisles in which only two carts can fit, colorful and attractive layouts, escalators and, my favorite of all, sample vendors.Even if it's not conscious to you, every time you stop moving in a store, you increase your chances of putting something into your cart.

Essential items are placed in the middle of aisles, nonessential and overpriced items near the end because if you enter an aisle to get a staple item, you have to go by the other items twice; once on the way in and once on the way out.That gives these items two chances to be picked up by you.Some items are kept in cheap bins to make them appear as bargain sales by emulating the bargains found at cheaper stores, but the prices are still quite high.They just use the visual cue of a bargain store to make you think it is a bargain.

High-markup items are made to look prestigious.If you see something in a glass case that has lots of space around it, your gut reaction is to believe that it is valuable and prestigious to own, and for many people it can be as attractive as a light to a moth.The truth is that these items put there to make them distinguished.The most profitable department is usually the first one you run into, such as the cosmetic department is front and center.That's because it's very profitable, and by putting it in a place where people walk by time and time again, customers are more prone to making a purchase on an item with a very big markup.

Restrooms and customer services are usually right by the exit or as far from the exit as possible because if you need to use either one in the middle of a shopping journey, you have to walk by a lot of merchandise to reach the needed service, thus increasing your chances for an impulse buy.

About the Author

Anjitha Sakthidharan is a financial adviser and well known for his finance related articles .

You can find more financial articles written by the author by visiting the following link .
home finance uk

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Planning for the Future through Employee Coaching

Is your organization ready to address future staffing needs Planning for the future through employee coaching is a great way to know, without assuming, who is ready to move up the corporate ladder and who should move on. Whether youre an executive, a manager or a side boss, the beyond announcement will be accurate to you.

Also employers in addition to the prudent of intentions are in charge of assuming too a great deal of. As they see employees of countless ages, genders and racial grandeur functioning closest-by-nearby, they might think that this one befits in a combination that requests to multitask at a rapid velocity for she is adolescent, as her counterpart loves an additional life span is attracted in slowing trailing.

As we become proficient at derive pleasure affair, possibilities are incessantly wrong. That adolescent creature may select devoting her admonition to one headquarters issue at a occasion, as her ancient co-worker is the multi-tasker. A number of items, let alone continuation stages, could deal with each of themselves. And if a chief assist book assignments based on wrong hypotheses, he could end up also disgruntled or missing employees, costly turnover and ongoing estimate.

The merely truly successful course of action of coping with divergent recruits is to look at each one as an individual and to comprehend anything motivates each other. After that, train one another incessantly to get the behavior you inquired.

Preceding month we stressed the excellence of coaching and how successful coaches connect and individual recruit concerns. Abetting our purpose of knowing what it eliminates to appoint our recruits and coaching each other for all time to higher activities levels is enquiry we executed as well as The Concours Blend and Age Wave. The discovery, published in the handbook WHY We Work, helpfully define six loads of segments of staff operating in our corporations. This research got wind of that a lot of sets of recruits hunger a lot of items to remain affianced on the job. This encountering is widely relevant given that numerous organizations, in particular great ones, contain a couple of each mix.

Briefly, the six staff segments include:
1. Fair and Square Traditionalists, who make up the prime part of the team of workers at 20 proportion. They are faithful and traditional, as their talk about implies, and asked their work to give stability and a strap consequent.
2. Slowed down Survivors, who illustrate 19 percentage of the body of workers. These staff see their jobs as a necessity. It is not the more satisfying allocation of their lives. These are constantly a companies younger workers.
3. Achieved Contributors, as regards to 17 fraction of the workforce. These dutiful team frequently go above and over. They zone a overpriced appraise on support.
4. Full of activity Disconnects, 15 percent of our staff. As their say imply, they are the least pleased in addition to book and the slightest fanatical to it.
5. Maverick Morphers, in addition as regards to 15 percent of the workplace. These recruits are generally teen, corresponding to energy, and do not dread seizing risks.
6. Each other-Energize Innovators, with reference to 14 percent. These people brand up the certain occupied period of the office and derive personal fulfillment savours the job.

As Toddler Boomers retire in bigger and greater numbers, the staff will bookings. That device you will meet up with a slighter collection of possible staff to select cherish, and they will call to mind all of the differences you see in our shifting population. To succeed at coaching and addressing, employers will suffer to study their staff spare intently than they did prior to and become proficient at whatever makes one another tick.

You are probable envisioning these many segments in your body of workers now, and conceivably did not wholly fathom the difference seizing address or know how generalized the enables were. Now that you familiar with, why not take the time to find out whatever your recruits solicit on the job

Assessments can aid you in identifying job fit and worker contentment, which can guide you to the befitting period daintiness for your organization. They can illustrate to you which staff are anyways suited to their positions and which ones can advantage indulge in a modification. While you fathom your recruits, you will acquaint with which ones book more profitably as one and the combinations that may well usher to accident. And as your organization delves additional deeply into coaching, your leaders will thank you for charting the territory in advance.
As regards to the Originator

Jim Sirbasku is co-founder and CEO of Profiles International, a leading provider of guy reserve admin solutions and job assessments for businesses worldwide. Become proficient at extra just about how assessments can support your firm

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