How to Take Your eBay Selling to the Next Level
I recently wrote about my experience of getting rid of stuff from around the house and selling the items on eBay. For some people, this process can last a long time – they’ve built up a big “inventory” through the years – but others find the pickings fairly slim after a few weeks. If you’ve enjoyed your experience selling on eBay, and want to devote more time to it, you have to start purchasing items for resale. Here are some questions to ask yourself and ideas to consider if you want to take your eBay selling to the next level. What is your long term vision? Do you want a little extra spending money or would you like to turn eBay selling into a full-time business, or one component of a retail business? If you watch shows such as American Pickers and Storage Wars, you’ll see some ways that vendors find stock to sell online, often through eBay auctions. You’ll also see that these vendors have other ways to means their merchandise, including retail stores or selling at flea markets or swap meets. What is your area of expertise? Do you have a hobby or have you been collecting anything for many years? If you’re an expert in an area, you might start your resale career by selling in that area. Recognizing value is the critical skill to have when you’re shopping for items to list on eBay. TIP: Sometimes items that don’t have a high enough resale value in the United States, have additional value overseas. If you’re an expert in certain collectibles, are there overseas buyers who will pay a premium for those items? How to find merchandise You usually want to maximize your margins when you sell on eBay so you need to buy items as cheaply as possible. If you’re looking for general merchandise here are some ideas: Offer to clean out cluttered garages, rooms, attics for relatives and friends. Do the work and haul away the stuff in exchange for keeping any items you think may be valuable. Cruise the weekend garage sales and flea markets. Find the websites and newspapers where these sales are listed. All the professional shoppers get there early. Study the local auction houses. There are probably several auctioneers in your area. Invest a little time learning how they work and which ones have potential to supply your eBay startup. If you feel lucky and savvy enough, try an abandoned storage unit auction. Look for online auctions. Bulk quantities of returned or “damaged” merchandise are auctioned off in large lots on the Internet. These can be a gamble, but smart buyers often turn a profit. Also, many local governments auction off surplus items on a regular basis. Check city and county websites. Find the nearby super-bargain stores. Most larger communities have one or two stores that deal in returned or cosmetically damaged merchandise from major retailers. Look for the “clearance” items in these stores that have been marked down to 75 percent off original retail. Consider all these sources for merchandise in the context of how far you want to take your eBay business. For example, if you buy a storage unit, or some pallets from a damaged shipment, you may have to go rent a storage unit yourself. But if you buy a...
read moreProtect Your Business as Email Con Artists Step Up Their Game
I’m a huge proponent for making constant improvements and tweaks to offerings so they stay current and adapted to a changing market. I wish honest small business owners were as dedicated to that process as the scammers have proven to be. One of the newest product releases from the Nigerian-Prince-Has-Money-For-You industry is targeted at smaller businesses. Employees in a company receive an email that looks like it’s from a senior executive and it’s flagged as “Urgent.” This new ploy has been called the “bossy business scam” as well as “masquerading” and usually hits companies that do business through China. Banks in South Africa, Turkey and Japan have also been used. Attention to details required The email requests that money be wired to cover something like a vendor payment or other business need, such as a confidential investment. Don’t think anyone in your organization would fall for the scam? Don’t be so hasty. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, the average loss so far has been $55,000 and some losses have gone above $800,000. Nicole Vincent Fleming, a consumer education specialist at the Federal Trade Commission wrote an alert on the scam explaining that the crooks put together email addresses that look close to the real thing so employees in a hurry might not notice the small telling details. In a more sophisticated variation of this scam, hackers are able to break into an company email system and generate the requests for money from a legitimate email account. Prior to receiving the phony email, scammers often contact the business posing as a vendor and requesting information to “update” the business’ account. This gives them the intelligence they need to pull off the second part of the ploy, where they ask for money. Scam prevention measures To give your small business a strong line of defense against this and other scams, be sure you do the following: Talk about Internet security and fraud at company meetings on a regular basis. Require multi-person approvals for any payments above a certain dollar amount. Use a standard purchase order system that requires management approval to spend money. Train your employees on security measures, such as calling back companies on a known phone number when you get requests for information. When you have a workforce of savvy scam-busters, you can rest a little easier knowing that you aren’t enriching a pack of overseas con men…and women. Image: Online Fraud, © 2008 Don Hankins, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
read moreA ‘Heads-Up’ Dashboard Works in Business Too: Watch Key Indicators
Sophisticated fighter jets—and now even some expensive automobiles—offer a “heads up” dashboard display. It enables pilots and drivers to look out the windshield and still see all their crucial gauges. In the same way, you should have a dashboard of key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can see while you’re in the trenches running your business everyday. Well, almost everyday, and that brings us to our first important point: Don’t wait for quarterly reports. Your KPI dashboard should be available to you at least on a monthly basis and in many cases weekly or biweekly would be even better. You might benefit from seeing some KPIs on a daily basis. With the accounting and inventory control software available today, this should be possible. If you only see these figures on a quarterly basis, you’ll always be navigating by squinting into your rear-view mirror. Businesses come in a startling variety of “flavors” today: service, retail, business-to-business, online, mail order, direct sales, brick-and-mortar, hybrid, etc. There is a wide array of KPIs, therefore, that should be closely watched. I’m going to suggest a few here that cut across most businesses. You may think of others. But before I list mine, I want to share one more important truth: If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it. This is one of the foundational principles of quality assurance and it applies to business in general. Be sure you can accurately generate all the important metrics required to understand where your business stands. Without that information, or with incorrect information, you will make bad decisions. Now let’s list some KPIs to help you measure, control and improve your growth: * Lifetime value. LTV. You need to know how much your customer is worth to your business. This is going to help you with various decisions you’ll need to make. Customer retention and customer attrition. How long are you keeping your customers? Always take at least two “snap shots” of this figure, at 30 days and at 90 days. When customers seemingly fall out at 30 days, how often do they come back within 90 days? * Customer acquisition cost. How much does it cost your business to get a new customer? Compare it to LTV. If your acquisition cost is near to or greater than your LTV, you need to go back to the drawing board. Also, what’s your “customer retention cost”? What works to maintain customer loyalty? * Sales or revenue by category, product or service. Here’s one you need to monitor as closely as possible in real time. Understanding what is selling and what isn’t allows you to better control inventory, find opportunities to bump up prices and know when it’s time to have a “fire sale.” * Your growth versus your industry’s growth. Are you on par, lagging or leading your competitors in growth? You might be happy with 3 percent yearly growth. But if everyone else is doing 5 percent, you’re going to have a hard time selling your business when the day comes. Plus, it may be a good indication that something in awry in your company. As you’re keeping track of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, keep your head up, eyes open and watch these KPIs too. What are some of the KPIs you watch...
read moreYou Aren’t in Kansas Anymore, Dorothy: The Realities of Transitioning to an Entrepreneur
Corporate employees and small business owners may as well live on two different planets. Corporate employees work hard to meet the goals and objectives of their organizations just as small business owners do. But unlike small business owners, corporate employees never have to worry about making payroll or keeping the lights turned on. There’s no need to stress over aging accounts receivable because the corporate accounting department handles that. Bad press, a missed deadline or a failed project can certainly create turmoil and stress in the corporate world, but when it happens to a small business owner, it could mean the end of the road. Entrepreneurs don’t have a safety net. If they screw it up, there’s no one else to blame. In today’s economy, millions of corporate employees are getting the boot and a significant number of them are choosing to migrate to the world of small business without an appreciation for the chasm that exists. Stripped of their title, comfortable office, dependable salary and support systems, these corporate casualties are in for a crash landing. You aren’t in Kansas anymore. So let me share some quick survival tips. First, upon entry to the land of small business, remember people here speak a different language. No one cares what you used to do for Big Name Company. You’re on your own here, kid. It’s up to you to prove your value. Secondly, don’t make the mistake of spending lots of money on marketing materials, a web site and office space. Here in the small business world, bootstrapping is the key to success and we’ll be happy to share our resources to help you look big without spending big. We’re all about collaboration. As you get started, don’t get frustrated when you have to do it all yourself. In our world, no job is too small for the CEO. Your job description encompasses janitorial work, bookkeeping, sales, administrative tasks, mail-room duties and generally everything else. It’s overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to it. You may be great at doing what you do, but that alone isn’t enough on this planet. To succeed, you must understand the basic principles of running a business too. There’s a huge difference between creating a job and building a business. A job generates revenue as long as you continue to work, but if you stop, so does the money. A business is bigger than you alone and it is sustainable without you. Finally, you only think you had ulcers in the corporate world. Running a small business requires you to work longer and harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. Plus, you’re adding the burden of putting at least part of your personal finances at risk. In the early stages of my company, I used to joke about loving my job so much, I paid to go to work every day. Once you’ve embraced the nuances of the small business world, I bet you’ll find it the best time of your life. It’s high risk and high reward, but I’d never trade it for the corporate world. Small business is the American...
read moreHow Mandatory Sick Pay Laws Hurt Small Business
If news reports are an accurate reflection of where the country is at, we’re in a period of increased conflict in employer-employee relations. The most visible of these conflicts has been the public protests demanding a $15 per hour minimum wage. Yet there’s another battle going on that’s capturing fewer headlines, but could have a bigger impact in the short and medium term: state and local sick pay mandates. Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Jersey City, New York City, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and Seattle have all passed legislation requiring virtually all employers to give paid sick days. Similar bills are pending in Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Washington. On the other side of the battle, several states have passed legislation that prevents cities and counties from enacting their own sick pay laws: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin. The battle lines are drawn. Both sides of the debate Proponents argue that these workers – including part-time and temporary employees – need the pay for financial and job security reasons. Further, it is a matter of public policy because without paid sick leave, employees often go to work ill and spread disease, attorney Nancy Delogu told Bloomberg DNA. The National Federation of Independent Business cites a study done on the Massachusetts law that says 16,000 jobs would be lost and the state’s economy would take a cumulative hit of some $8.4 billion by 2016. But perhaps the worst finding is that two-thirds of the job losses and about half the drop in sales would come from small business. While all of these proposed laws differ, they all come with additional paperwork and record keeping requirements and sometimes the formulas used to calculate entitled sick days can be rather Byzantine. For example, due to state and city laws governing sick pay in New York City, a domestic worker who puts in 20 to 29 hours per year in the previous year is entitled to three and one-third sick days. The usefulness of one-third of a day is, at best, debatable. Small vs big business Among bigger businesses and government, sick days are expected to be part of the benefits package. In fact, this has been the case for so many years that sick days are generally viewed not as a “benefit” but as a right. The problem is that sick days have a different operational impact on small business. In large companies – with the exception of long-term illnesses – there are usually no additional payroll costs when an employee misses work. Big businesses can stay open and function when employees call in sick. The work can be delayed or staff members juggled around. However, when there are only a handful of employees, this isn’t so easily accomplished. The missing employee needs to be covered through overtime or by bringing in someone to cover. The small business owner pays both the sick pay and the cost to have someone else do the work. It seems like many of our elected officials are unable to discern the different economic ecosystems in which big business and small business are able to thrive and when they legislate the write...
read moreIs Your Small Business Easy Prey for a Cyber-Criminal?
It’s almost becoming an everyday occurrence — a major company being hacked. And if big companies are falling victims to cyber-criminals, what about small businesses? Small businesses are easy prey for these unscrupulous folks. Don’t think it won’t happen to you. For some excellent advice, I turned to personal security and identify theft expert, Robert Siciliano for advice. The Small Business Expert: Robert, first let’s talk about protecting your data in the event of a disaster. We’ve seen many small businesses have to close their doors because of a natural disaster, and yet if they’d protected their data, that might not have been the case. Siciliano: Being informed is what it’s all about, you know knowing the red flags to look for, knowing the signs, doing your homework, having systems in place and essentially having a contingency plan. You know the adage if you fail to plan, you plan to fail holds true with all things security. THE Small Business Expert: You mentioned a contingency plan. How do you go about creating one of those? Siciliano: Well, it boils down to determining risk. So if you look at the nature of your business and the risks that you might face, whether that’s from a disaster or theft whether, internally or externally. You look at all the different risks that you might face and then from there, you know, you put together a plan to mitigate those risks. That might involve going out and sourcing consultants that specialize in that or picking up a book or a manual — taking some type of a seminar and determining how to calculate those risks versus the reward and ultimately put together that plan of action so that if something was to go bad you would know how to respond step by step. THE Small Business Expert: Okay, let’s go back to the topic of cyber-security. When major brands are getting hit, how in the world can a small business protect itself? Siciliano: That goes back to that contingency plan, putting together a plan of action, bringing in the right professionals and then having the basics in place — having a firewall, having the right hardware and software. Again knowing what your risks are as far as the data is being protected. If you’re a retailer establishment or any type of a business that takes credit cards then you have to follow the payment card industry’s standards which means that generally — annually or bi-annually or semi-annually — you are going through processes in which your data or the security of that data is looked at externally, meaning that somebody is coming in through your network, through a firewall, they are going over your systems, looking for certain systems in place. It might also mean that somebody is coming inside your facilities and looking at your technology, making sure that everything is secure so that ultimately you fall under the guidelines of the payment card industry standards. You have penetration testers, these are ethical hackers, good guy hackers, they come in and look at your security and they determine what it is and what it isn’t and then they do what is necessary to ensure that your data is protected by seeking out certain vulnerabilities and then patching any of those vulnerabilities. So...
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