How to Chose an Area of Specialty on ebay

How do PowerSellers has a combined feedback rating of more than 35,000, get started? The actual circumstances vary. In some cases, wholesale sellers who have been supplying clothing or other items to a small group of retail merchants realize that they can start selling directly to the public on eBay.

In other cases, people who are dissatisfied with their current circumstances look for a way to apply their knowledge and ambition to making money on eBay: stay-at-home moms realize that they have the time to make some extra money “on the side”; office workers who spent their energy in business for someone else decide to go into business for themselves.

Whatever the circumstances, all of the successful eBay sellers start with the realization that they can do things differently: The status quo isn’t sufficient for them anymore. Not only that, but they sense that eBay can provide them with a way to change their lives. With millions of sellers on eBay all over the world, there are millions of different stories describing how this “Aha!” moment turns into a concrete plan of action. But for most of the sellers I’ve interviewed for this and previous eBay books, it starts with a little bit of self-examination—a look around at what they already do, what they already collect, or what they love—and identifying that as their sales niche.

For example, after his radio business failed, Phil began to sell on eBay, but not haphazardly. He knew the importance of drawing up a business plan, even if it consists of handwritten notes on low-tech paper. “I definitely had a business plan. I had been through the business mill before, so in November 2002, I put things down on paper to work out what sort of timeline I wanted to achieve my goals.” The thing to remember is that you need to project what you want to do and how much you want to make over a given period of time.

Then set about meeting those goals. For example, Phil called his eBay business Entertainment House. (Its home page is at http://www.entertainmenthouse.net.) The home page of one of his eBay Stores (http://stores.ebay.com.au/ENTERTAINMENT-HOUSE), shown in Figure 1-1, identifies his business niche and his mission: to sell “hard to find movies and music at great prices.” He used his existing knowledge of the entertainment industry to build a new business.

Phil admits that it’s getting more difficult to sell on eBay due to increased competition. It’s still possible to start a new eBay business and make it successful, but you need to have a plan for acquiring and keeping
customers, he says. “If you can acquire customers through eBay and then sell to them directly, your sales will really grow. We are planning to send newsletters to our existing customers; we haven’t marketed to them yet. We are going to offer them $5 off the first purchase they make directly from us. Anyone who buys a DVD from us receives a chocolate koala bear in the package. One in every five positive feedback comments we receive is because of the
chocolate. It shows the customer you actually care.”

Entertainment House was in the process of revising each of its storefronts to incorporate the checkout system provided by Marketworks and Channel Advisor. When someone makes a purchase, the system enables the seller
to upsell (suggest other things the customer might want to buy, based on purchases they’ve made in the past). “We are going to do everything we can to cultivate customers who came to us through eBay,” says Leahy.
That’s another essential habit of eBay PowerSellers: They do everything they can to retain customers. They send them gifts with purchased items. They do everything they can to entice those customers to buy from them
directly after buying something on eBay.