eBay Business – Tricky Situations In Business

Posted by admin in Business Checklist on Aug 7th, 2010 | 0 comments

What you have to remember when starting up your Ebay business is that it is no different from any other business venture. The business world is all about buying and selling and so is your Ebay project. Conduct all your business transactions in a professional manner then you your product or service will be taken seriously.

Running a business is not as big a mission that people make it out to be. However it can prove to be stressful at times – but you can change that by having an organised system. Organization should be one of the main priorities right from the start. Keeping on top is important – keep data up to date and file all files this will help your Ebay business to run smooth thus saving you time.

Most Ebay business`s are run from home so choose a room in the house that you can create as an office area to do business. An office type surrounding will encourage you more in your Ebay business. Everyone has a business plan structured up so why not you – remember you are in business for yourself now.

Write your Ebay plan accordingly to comply with Ebay`s rules and regulations. Jot down your goals you expect to achieve – profits from sales or whatever comes to mind to claim success. Go research on how other Ebay sellers are successful in their business.

Another vital addition is to have an Ebay business checklist drawn up and easily at hand – list all that you would need to start up – like organizing your products for auction, this will include itemized tasks like the photo shoot, writing out a description for the sale item and remember to answer all emails – we are looking to run this Ebay business professionally and prompt replies to questions or queries is where you will gain respect from your customers. Respect can bring repeat orders.

The product or service you choose to sell in your Ebay business is entirely up to you but please do a little research on this matter – the reason being is the greater the need for a certain item then the more chance you have of a guaranteed sale. Expenditure and costs should be limited at least till you have learnt a few tricks of the trade. Buying up front in large quantities is not a good idea – you maybe left with unwanted stock if the product you have chosen to sell for your Ebay business has a sell by date.

There should be no reason why your Ebay business can not be as successful just like the thousands of others who are making their fortune selling their wares.

In an Ebay business what are the tricks of the trade – how can you find out about the tricks of the trade – well let me tell you about a little trick picked up on the way and that is to learn from others. By doing this you can prevent yourself becoming involved in any tricky situations.

MLM Checklist

Posted by admin in Business Checklist on Aug 2nd, 2010 | 0 comments

Starting your own MLM franchise begins with doing careful research on the Internet for various network marketing opportunities. By using the Internet, network marketing success is much more attainable than before and can be done working from your home.  Choosing the hours to work makes an MLM business very attractive and can be done on the side while you still hold down a full-time job. As you build your business and the income generated from it grows you may eventually be able to focus on it full-time and quit your job.

Doing business with a reputable company is very important.  Network marketing ventures usually include an initial membership fee and some companies require an additional investment. It all depends on what you are comfortable with and what you are prepared to do. When doing some comparisons between companies try to contact members who have been involved for sometime and find out if they’re happy with the business opportunity before signing up. Use your judgement and filter out those who will paint a rosy picture even if they are failing miserably so you can make an educated assessment of the situation.  Check out the company of choice with the Better Business Bureau and find out anything you can about the company on the Internet.  Again, use your judgement because not everything you read is gospel but can shed light on a company’s conduct.  Learn about the company’s financial status and if it is successful.

Stability is important with companies who promise results. When trying to decide on what company to do business with find out how long they have been in business. Research their products and services to see if what they offer is legitimate and actually selling.  Is it something you believe in?  Is it something you would use yourself?  Will you feel good about selling these products/services to others? What about recruiting like-minded people to do the same? Be prepared to spend quality time you’re your recruits in training them to duplicate your actions and be successful. Grow your team with patience, education, passion, and consistent hard work.  Lead by example.

A positive attitude will do wonders for your MLM business.  Look at the venture as a unique opportunity to successfully run a home-based business and not having to spend 30 years building it. At the same time be completely realistic and avoid hype and “get rich” schemes.  They never work.  There are many scams out there and that is why it’s important to do some research and find a company that has been around long enough to have a proven track record. It is so easy to get overexcited and fall for false claims online but it is vital to know all the ins and outs of engaging in any new business opportunity and looking at the long-term effects.

The network marketing model has been applied to a variety of products and services including those related to telecommunications, health, insurance, legal, travel, weight management, and others. Consumers are becoming more Internet savvy and are making smarter choices regarding what products and services they purchase. In response, more business leaders are leveraging the power of the Internet to respond to the needs of consumers, and as a result are gaining both financial and personal freedom through multi-level marketing opportunities.  To your success!

Gopal (The Musical Mad Scientist and Entrepreneur)

www.boom.thevfusiongroup.biz

Business Travel on Short Notice

Posted by admin in Business Checklist on Jul 30th, 2010 | 0 comments

In any travel situation, the further in advance you can plan your trip, the better you will do on all of your accommodations.  But in the world of business, it often occurs that you have to get to a destination immediately, and the ability to move swiftly is critical to the success of the business goal.  The good news is that you can do some preparations well in advance for short notice business trips so you are not caught completely without a plan. You don’t want to have to waste time trying to figure out how to book a flight and where to stay if a business trip comes up suddenly.   Short notice business trips seem to be endemic of certain industries and job descriptions. If you know you will go through this drill often, you can make some arrangements far in advance so you have a checklist of just what to do.

First of all, in a short notice travel situation, economy takes a second priority.  Your employer knows that if you have to book full fare on an airline to get to your destination at a specific time, the higher expense is unavoidable.  Make sure that your company travel policy has some clauses to put aside travel budget limits in such a scenario.

The part of the trip where you will have the least “wiggle room” will be airline accommodations.  Of course, you can use the big internet search tools like Travelocity, Orbitz or myroadtotravel.  In general, those are good places to start to find what airlines do have flights at your specified times.  But once you pick an airline, working through the airline’s web site directly will show you the most options they can offer and sometimes provide you with better fares, even on short notice.   Be sure you watch the travel details closely so you don’t find yourself enduring long layovers that are going to jeopardize the tight timetable of the business meetings you need to attend.  If necessary, spend the money on nonstop flights to assure that the business goal of the trip is top priority.

Do your homework about hotel accommodations well in advance.  If there are likely destinations that you could be called upon to go to quickly, you can do your research on the closest hotels to the business site so you cut down on commutes once you are there.  By having your target hotels bookmarked and the phone numbers on file, you can quickly call and set up your accommodations in a matter of minutes.  But if you find that your best choices for hotels are booked up on the days you will be at your site, call them anyway.  A good hotel will call around to other hotels in the area and get you a room as close to your destination as possible.  They can save you hours of frustration searching for a replacement room.

Rental cars are usually not as much of a problem.  It’s a good idea to call ahead and get a reservation, but short of a major convention or sporting event in town, there are so many rental car agencies that you should be able to find a car to rent even if you don’t start your search until you are on the ground at your destination city.

You can make other preparations for the possibility of a short notice business trip like having your toiletries and personal affects you always travel with packed and ready to walk out the door.  By having your travel clothes ready to go, you can virtually walk home and walk out the door in a matter of minutes. Business trips on short notice are sometimes unavoidable. Using the above tips will assist you in making your accommodations quickly and efficiently, and take the stress out of business trips on the fly.

Craft Business Basics 3 – Price

Posted by admin in Business Checklist on Jul 22nd, 2010 | 0 comments

This article is the third in a series of four articles that will guide you on how you can start your own crafts business using the four Ps of Marketing -Product, Place, Price and Promotion. What are the things you need to consider when pricing your product to ensure that your product is priced well enough to sell and well enough for you and all involved to earn well?

Pricing, as you might have experienced, is something many people struggle with. If you’ve already created your product, you’ll know what I mean. When I first had to price my products, I checked out some marketing textbooks. They were unfortunately of little use to me, other than telling me there were different ways of pricing the products.

What are the 2 challenges of pricing?

1) Pricing at a level that attracts the buyers

2) Pricing at a level that maximizes profits while remaining attractive to the buyers

In certain businesses, the cost-plus method of pricing works very well, meaning you calculate your cost and add a certain percentage of profits. However, in the crafts business, this method, while being able to give you reasonable income, may not always be the best.

For example, the Harrod’s bear and Paddington’s bear don’t cost much more to produce than a nameless toy bear, but they sell for so much more. If you were to simply apply the cost-plus method, can you imagine how much you’d have lost?

The difference here is the perceived value of the item. If you can make something look expensive or create something that people want, you can and should charge much higher than the cost. In pricing, you will have to look at your packaging and promotion so don’t be pressured to price low simply because your material costs were low. However, if what you have is not unique then it may not be wise to put a high price tag on your product. Your customers may be willing to pay the price at the point of purchase but if they see a similar product selling much cheaper elsewhere, you may lose your credibility and the potential of repeat purchases from them.

If your craft item is not entirely new or you’re just making a popular item to sell, it’s easy to check the market price by visiting a few stores or checking the internet. An original product is trickier because it might involve some testing before you get the right price. Start by asking a few friends, especially those who share your interest in crafts. A better way would be to make a prototype and then take it to your friends and the gift and/or crafts stores and ask them how much they would be willing to pay for it or how much it can sell for. You should be able to get a pretty good idea.

Whether you want to use the cost-plus method or price at the market price, you’ll need to have a very good idea of your cost. Failure to do so may result in you losing money instead of profiting from your crafts.

Here’s a simple checklist to help you work out your cost.

1) Material cost

Make sure you list down everything, even things you are able to get for free now because you may have to pay for them later and that will affect your pricing. Furthermore, even free things need time and time is money.

2) Labour cost

If you’re making them yourself, you need to ask yourself how much you’re worth per hour then work from there. Suppose you make ten of an item in an hour and you want to pay yourself $20 per hour. The labour cost of each item would be $2.

Remember to include packaging time and even the time you need to travel to the post office.

3) Marketing cost

Depending on the sales channels you’re using, the cost here will vary. If you’re selling on the internet, you’ll need to factor in your webhosting, domain name, design fees etc. If you’re selling via catalogs or mail-orders, you must factor in your printing and shipping cost as well.

Also, if your product requires you to explain or clarify things on the phone, remember you need to factor in your phone bills and more importantly, the time you’ll need to spend on the phone.

4) Your Profit

This is an area which many freelancers or work-from-home business people miss. It’s alright to just earn your income based on your per hour worth but that would be a bad way of running a business. We need to remember we’re running a business here and we need to treat a business as a business. This profit amount will make up for lower sales volume, increase cashflow for purchase of more materials and also fund your expansion. If we don’t factor this in, we’ll forever be stuck with the same pay. Even employees get raises right?

After you have included your material and labour cost, you should mark up another 20% to 30% or more as your profit margin. However, this only represents the minimum amount that you’ll accept for your product. The next part will help you determine the cost you’ll sell to different parties.

5) Distribution Channel Markup

For most product-based businesses, a product typically flows through the distribution channel in this fashion.

Manufacturer -> Distributor/Wholesaler -> Retailer

In between them, there may also be agents and if the products are sold to different states or different countries, there may be other local agents/distributors and the chain will get longer and longer.

What this means for you as you’re pricing your product is you will need to ensure that you keep the retail price competitive and that the various parties get their fair share of profits at the same time.

Typically wholesalers will accept a lower markup than retailers because they work with higher volumes and because they need to ensure that the retailers have enough to earn. If you’re just starting out, you can be your own distributor and go directly to the retailers. This allows you to earn more or give a greater markup to your retailers but because you or your staff will need to go to the stores, it will require greater effort on your part.

Retailers will as for a minimum of 20% to 30% markup for most products, depending on the products. I may be spoiler here but many products are marked up hundreds or thousands of percent. In my own store, I only retail products that I have at least 30% to 40% (usually more for craft products) unless the product is so popular that I can sell a lot more to justify the lower markup. With a healthy margin, I have some room to do promotions or clearance sales so even if the product doesn’t do too well initially, I can do something about it without losing money.

It is very important to keep yourself focussed on your core competency and earn from that. Some people get greedy and try to do everything themselves and earn from every stage of the distribution channel. It may sound attractive but don’t forget that to do everything, you will need to do a lot more work and you only have 24 hours a day.

To become a wholesaler requires a lot of running around from store to store. Retailing requires significant capital to startup. If you spend time on these, you will not have time to create your products. We all work with limited time so you will need to choose your business focus wisely. Ultimately, if you learn the power of leveraging then you will be able to create a company that controls the whole process. However, our focus here is about starting a home-based crafts business so that is out of the consideration for now.

The whole idea is to do very well in what you focus on and let the experts in the other areas help you succeed in the other areas. If you find that you are good in product distribution or retailing instead of craft-making, you might want to focus on those areas and source your products from others.

If we are able to implement the win-win thinking in our business, we should be able to at least do ok. At the end of the day, business is about making money. If your suppliers or distributors or retailers can earn well from your products because they move fast and they have high markup, you can rest assured they will put in that extra effort to promote your products. Some people try to save a few percent here and there and cut down on others’ profits. While this might sound logical and prudent, it might work against you in the long-run because your distributors and retailers will gravitate towards whatever is making them the most money. If you are in doubt, err in favour of the distributors/retailers without compromising your minimum amount (see part 3 of this checklist) and you won’t go wrong.

5) Check against the market

Lastly, you should always check your pricing against the market instead of just plucking a figure from the air. If it’s an existing product, check your price against your competitors to see if your price is competitive. You don’t have to be lower. In fact, try not to be lower because low price often indicates low quality as well. Don’t compete on price. Compete on quality instead. You just have to ensure you’re not so way off the market price that people would not even consider buying. Once you’ve gone through this thought process, I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with a good price.

With the internet, it has become much easier to do price research. Just go to Ebay, Yahoo, Amazon, Froogle and other price-comparison sites and you will be able to get a good feel of the prices around. However, if you are going to sell in retail stores, do go and take a walk to check the prices because there can be a significant gap between the prices at brick-and-mortar retail stores and internet stores.

The last thing to note for pricing is that price is dynamic. The market is changing all the time and so does the price, especially for trend items. Evergreen items can afford to be priced the same for long periods of time because of a slower but steady demand. Trend items because of the demand can often start out with a very high price but as demand dwindles the prices will go down as well.

Affiliate Marketing – Setup Your Own Business

Posted by admin in Business Checklist on Jul 22nd, 2010 | 0 comments

Since the time of introduction of the internet, one thing that is always making people think is how to earn money online. Many schemes that are aggressively promoted by so many people the in the world wide web from all parts of the world, you are always wondering which is the surest and the best way of doing business online so that you can also earn your millions online. This presents a very confusing situation to all newcomers in the Internet marketing industry.

All newcomers in online business must by all means have plan and a very basic and simple checklist of what things to when starting off in launching of a profitable online business. As a person who has just started, it is advisable for him or her to first join up with an affiliate marketer like ClickBank, start selling other people’s products through the website. When you are fully aware and you become more familiar and proficient, you can then create your own affiliate business program or sell your own products and market them online.

The following things are required to be done first if you want to start your own affiliate business and make it a great success:

You should first identify your target market, target. This is necessary as your research will help you to decide the product you want to affiliate and sell for. You need to construct your sales pitch now. People don’t buy products, they buy ideas and concepts to take care of their needs and they buy solutions to solve problems that they otherwise can’t solve themselves. This is an integral and inherent feature of the customer psyche. When choosing a product, you need not research or crack your head on the features and benefits, rather you need to realize yourself if the concept is new and prolific, and if it helps in satisfying the needs of the customer and solve his problems. You need to aggressively sell your product by driving maximum people to your website. If there is little or no traffic to your site, there will be no sales at all. After having narrowed down your target segment in the market, try to encourage people in the net to visit your site. Your website is your online retail showroom which is your place of online business. Front end offers are made at the initial sale, now your strategy should be to follow up with your customers with your back end offers. If you want a regular and steady income from your website you should never ignore the back end offer part. It also gives you a higher commission.

You need to now create multiple content web pages which will enable you to sell other product types that will give your earnings a major boost. Keep adding new pages and multiple product lines and check for new opportunities all the time. This is the best route towards building your own internet business. By following these simple tips you will slowly over a period of time be able to devise your own affiliate business checklist with the simultaneous growth in your experience and expertise.