K so I've been totally slack and haven't posted anything here since like forever but now I'm back on that horse (thanks D!)
So much has happened since September 2010. I am NOT going back to work anytime soon. YES!
Grand Sale Grand Sale!
I finally launched my first product listings on eBay in last October 2010. Things took off much better than expected. The product I had was meant to be a "way in" to the market, but it's turned out to be much bigger than I thought it would be! I won't go into specifics, but it's practically paying for my living expenses at the moment, however I've going backwards due to education expenses and other lump sum expenses like car rego etc.
eBay Terrorist Tactics
Within the first 2 weeks of entering the market, my biggest competitor (who had most of the market) decided to log in under a different ebay userID and proceeded to purchase two products from me and left me negative feedback and damaging comments all within 10 minutes. You see, I'd spent time on my marketing and listings to the point where I came in and practically took all market share, so he was clearly not a happy chappy. He was downright pissed off. I gotta tell you, eBay support were PATHETIC and WOULDN'T DO SQUAT to help out. All I got was a bunch of canned 'sorry this isn't actually against eBay policy, perhaps you should try approaching the user to change his feedback' responses. Yeah awesome! That's like politely asking a vandal to come and clean up the buckets of paint he's just thrown all around your brand spanking new retail shop! I'm sure he'll be up for that, great idea!!! Thanks customer support guys!
So here I was thinking "great I've spent the good part of 4 months building up a great reputation to have Mr. OMG-I'm-Going-Out-Of-Business rort the system and punch me in the guts". But was I going to sit and take it? No. NFW. There was no bloody chance after all the shit I've been through that that was going to stop me!
To cut a long story short we got the negative feedback reversed, finally by pulling a few strings with my mentors. Phew.
Oh and the good news is we haven't seen or heard from our retail vandal since. Justice is sweet.
Now where you at fool?
Since then, I've added a couple of new products of different sizes, and I'm also doing combination kits as a way of upselling which has been very effective. Just last week I spoke with a new supplier on a product that is related to my current one and one that I can upsell. And I will be dealing with them directly aswell (no middle man, so my margins are kept reasonable, otherwise there would be zero profit in it). Booya
Key learning points:
-Make sure you get your logistics contracts sorted out! I've had many issues with my 3PL, much of it due to their business growing rapidly and their systems not up to scratch. I don't think I could have really predicted these issues until I'd tried them out however. Outsourced logistics brings it's own set of issues and I think this will have to be a separate discussion!
-Work hard on your marketing and sales copy. It has made all the difference. I also include free extras, plenty of information and testimonials. Now that said, if you are selling many, many items it may not be feasible to create 15 page sales letters. This is something I'm going to have to review going forward.
-Be prepared for the competition. If you take market share, your competitors aren't likely to take it lying down. Keep your cool, don't do anything stupid and focus on getting the crap resolved, stat! Fight back with good marketing (I'm not the cheapest in my category!)
Let me get this right, you have a web business but no website?
They aren't cheap OR easy to setup ok! I'm looking at opening up a website so that the customers I've attracted via eBay can be marketed to and directed to purchase from me directly from my website. This will cut out eBay fees, provide me an opportunity to showcase my other products, aswell as market offline directly to customers (as it adds to your credibility to have an eCommerce website, rather than just directly customer to purchase via eBay). But there's like a gazillian more things that need to be taken care of ... so I need to be sure I'm heading in the right direction first...
eBay + Website = More Win
I get emails all the time from customers asking if they can give me their credit card over the phone, or transact via another method. So I'm feeling the urge to get a website set up. I have both business and regular mums and dads purchasing my products so I'll need to cater for both (who knows I might have to split the business up!? ... that's another story altogether).
I'm researching a software platform that will allow me to run a centralised inventory for both my eBay store and website (otherwise you have to start splitting up your stock and managing each separately, which is a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE). It will give me an eCommerce webstore. It will also integrate with my 3PL so I don't need to manually send orders or manually recieve order status updates via email. And it apparently integrates well with MYOB or SaaSu accounting packages. Sounds holygrail-ish ... too good to be true? Research!
One thing I haven't touched much on is the direction of the business. I think I'll tell you about that another day, but for now I'm still not entirely clear on what kind of business I want, how big I want it and what it will look like, what I will sell and who I will sell to. Being unclear on the outcome I want makes decision making (especially expensive ones) problematic. I'm learning more and more that I have SO many options it's crazy, but it's important that those options:
a) make money (generally important if you want to, like, live)
b) are aligned with my own skills and passions (I'm not interested in selling Share Trading books, sorry!)
