[Beneddie1112]

A Beer Money Business

Hey guys,

In this thread I plan to explain my theory behind setting up a business on a shoe string budget to pay your beer money every month. The business has a specific set of needs and an order in which I suggest they should be done for optimum results. Please note this is not suggested as a replacement for people's main business, Just as a sideline

What you will need:
A credit card
An Ebay and Paypal account
A website
Some leaflets
Some good sales copy

Number 1: Getting set up.
This step is to set up and prepare all of the relevant accounts and get your leaflets in place. These can be obtained from NeilDigital, a member on here who is ideal for small amounts or RayB if ordering large amounts.

These accounts can be registered through the homepages of these sites and can be set up virtually instantaneously, thus meaning that you can have your business up and running for yourself within a few hours.

With regards to the website, Phil at OpenMind comes highly recommended and has some very good prices with unbeatable prices. This part of the plan is used later to maximize the amount of money you make.

Number 2: Preparing the items.
This step is where you decide the products that you are going to use as the basis of your business. For the example of this post I shall be using the bargain DVD's on websites such as Play and Amazon. I decided upon using the Saw quadrilogy. Firstly, I scanned eBay for similair listings and found one recently finished at £33.50 delivered, When I browsed the websites of Play.com etc, I found all 4 could be purchased from the same place for just £21.96. This means that for a listing you would make a pre-fee profit of £11.54. Not bad considering you simply repackage and post.

Within eBay auctions however it has been shown that a convincing sales text and some good quality pictures can easily bolster an auctions saleability. This means that it is likely to encourage more bids and increase your profits.

Number 3: Reeling them in
Having completed a succesful eBay sale, you include 1 of your leaflets within every package you send and make sure to tag a discount code. I believe that the product you sell on the site should be complimentary to what is being sold through your eBay methods. In relation to the product used in here I suggest items such as DVD racks and disc cleaners. These items are fairly high profit and you will have a targeted audience who are specifically looking for products that you sell without having to wait for the SEO aspect's to kick in.

Using some convincing sales patter on the site should also encourage people into ordering, and then when the customer reaches the cart feature, you should be attempting the up-sell. Suggest several products that would go with the product they are purchasing to increase order size and inevitably your profits. Based upon an eBay business selling 200 lots a month, with a 5% conversion rate from the leaflets you will be receiving 10 sales a month from the site. These orders are on the higher profit items as well and are requiring little or no effort on your end.

Number 4: 1 last attempt.
Now you should have a catalogue of happy customers with all of them pleased with their orders. From this point you should be using email newsletters to keep them up to date with latest product additions and allow them to order from you with incentives such as money off and BOGOF when you can. This keeps the customer on their toes and constantly checking your site.

Number 5: Congratulations!
Based upon following all of these techniques correctly, having the right product and a little bit of luck, you should now have a fairly profitable business that is keeping you in your favourite vice (Smile).

Please offer any comments or suggestions about how this article could be improved,

Much appreciated

Take care everyone,
Ben

[Beneddie1112]

So, any thoughts on this?

[KingPin]

Ben, just a thought, but is you seen the news tonight, Ebay have been fined 30 million by Louis Vuitton.

Plus they are in the center of a "credit note" fraud battle at the moment.

Ebay is losing credibility....fast.


KP

[Beneddie1112]

Yep completely understand where you're coming from Lee. Still a good avenue though for a while to sell things you want rid of.

However I know about 5 or 6 big sellers, more than £100k a month, and 2 have stopped completely and all but 1 have more than halved their listings. They're all migrating over to Amazon etc, where there a different type of clientel,

People on eBay expect a bargain and he buyers are generally quite ignorant, whereas with Amazon you get a place where people don't expect bargain prices and are more understanding towards your situation. (For example, not expecting 24hr delivery even though they haven't yet payed, got that more than once while selling on ebay )

Cheers,
Ben

[Nicksyb]

For myself personally I don't see Ebay as a place to do business anymore.

What with the fee's, very strong competition and people wanting stuff the same day it is more hassle than it's worth.

I haven't really read the Ebay news thing but from looking around on Ebay and talking to people they are now prefering to do their business elsewhere.

[john.lewis]

I found many useful thing over here..but i would like to say that ebay is not as reliable as it was. we must have options for that.

[Terry Kyle]

Hi Ben,

Another idea for your neat plan:

Once you have the product page/s set up, post a [free] listing that contains the ebay/amazon page address of your products on gumtree dot com and gumtree dot co dot za [yes, South Africa!].

Google picks these up very quickly in its normal search results and you will probably be on page 1 or 2 of Google search results for that item within a few hours of posting.

I'm no SEO expert but Gumtree is a very busy site and Google is crawling all over it constantly. I know from experience that this works and could give you more potential buyers than just being listed on ebay or Amazon.

Hope this helps bud.

Best regards
Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
"400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World"