The "E" Road Less Traveled

Strange Stuff With BANS

2008-10-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

So awhile ago one of the platforms I used to make money online was BANS or Build A Niche Store. You can see what one of these eBay affiliate store looks like here: used snowboards. As you can see the site is pretty basic and this site has a little more then the average amount of content I put on BANS sites...

The story lately on BANS sites is that Google has gone on a wide de-indexing spree and that's completely true. Several of my BANS sites have been de-indexed by Google and are no longer receiving traffic from the big G. That's the bas news...

The good news is that Yahoo is stepping up and is now sending traffic to my BANS network. Is Yahoo sending enough traffic for me to continue building BANS sites?

I haven't quite made that decision yet and right now I'm in full fledged marketing and promoting mode. Right now I have the unenviable task of promoting about 50 new sites that I recently built. Trying out a new process on these sites and we'll see how it goes. Process goes something like this:

Scuttle Runs on BMD
Blog Comment Runs
Write article and use Article Submitter to post to article directories
Bookmarking Runs
Directory Submissions

And now I'm also using Article Marketing Automation to promote my sites. There's a lot of buzz about this product/service lately so I figured I would give it a whirl and see how it goes. It's $47 a month so I'm using it pretty aggressively... I'm using AMA primarily to build a blog farm and to point links to my money sites obviously. More on AMA later...

Operation Online Vending Machines

2008-05-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

So the goal these days is to build a combination of 50-100 BANS (Build a Niche Store) and Adsense Sites...

I'm testing and experimenting a lot of different things... for instance with a few of the Adsense sites I'm using a black background on the Wordpress Blogs... some of them have some pretty bad content that's barely readable and some are actually some pretty decent Blogs with some pretty good content.

The BANS sites are complety new to me so it'll be interesting to see how those go...

The goal is for each of these sites to make like a buck each per day and basically just have a lot of 'em... like I said about 50-100

Won't be signing up for Traffic Jam or

2008-02-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

The fact that Traffic Jam pools all of it's stories/ links from Blog Rush users kills it for me.

I used the Blog Rush widget on several of my Blogs and it practically didn't deliver anything... maybe it's because those websites/ Blogs weren't getting any traffic either???

Anyhow, my mission these days it to build sites, post to blogs and repeat.

Started a Few Blogs... Going a lil blackhat

2008-02-20T17:19:00.003-08:00

You go in the Internet Marketing/ Make Money/ affiliate marketing Online industry long enough and you start to realize a few things...

One of the things I realized recently is that when you're building a website and you're building backlinks to it, there will come a point where you've pretty much picked up as many back links as you're going to get.

You know emailing other webmasters, writing articles, posting on Blogs and social bookmarking sites will only take you so far...

Unless you're willing to go just a little black hat - maybe we'll call it faded black hat.

Anyhow, I've built about 20 Blogs (which will be my money blogs - sites I promote products on) and now I'm building a bunch of sites whose only purpose will be to link to my money Blogs.

These sites will all be "free" sites comprised of Blogger Blogs, wordpress blogs, squidoo lenses and maybe even some MySpace pages.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Choosing the Right Wholesaler or Dropshipper for your eBay Business

2006-06-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

Choosing the right Wholesaler or Dropshipper for your eBay business

A few years ago it really didn't matter which Wholesaler/Dropshipper you chose. There were so many shoppers and eyes on eBay that people were literally buying stuff on eBay just so they could show up to work on Monday and say they bought something on eBay. Those were the good old days. Things have changed...Dramatically.

Back in the day you could do a Google search for wholesale or dropship, click on one of the links and you were well on your way to making some pretty good money if not millions. I call this the Gold Rush era of eBay and unfortunately those days are long gone. If you did that today, you could lose your shirt. Here's my first rule regarding choosing the right wholesaler or dropshipper:

# 1 If you found your potential wholesaler or dropshipper on the internet doing any kind of search (Google, Yahoo etc.) there's a really good chance that the market is already saturated and overflowing with sellers.

The number of millionaires eBay created laid the foundation for some of the problems eBay is facing today. When the average Joe heard about eBay sellers making millions from home, he was naturally interested and this interest attracted some of the shadiest people on the planet or better yet the universe - Internet Marketers. Not all Internet Marketers are bad but there are some atrociously bad apples that have really given most a bad name. You see some Internet Marketers really don't care what they sell so long as they make a sale. So they'll sell you outdated information or (and this is what I see often) they will claim to be an authority (they call themselves Gurus) on selling on eBay and sell you information that is absolutely useless. I bought a lot of the information these self-proclaimed Gurus were selling. One particular book I bought contained 12 pages of how to register on eBay and how to get started! This is literally the same information you can find for free on eBay.com.

Other books contained lists of wholesalers and dropshippers that were nothing more then middle men claiming to be wholesalers. You see these Internet Marketers didn't qualify any of these wholesalers/dropshippers. They just plucked them out of the yellow pages, slapped a bunch of them on a .PDF, wrote a compelling sales page and then sold it to you all while laughing all the way to the bank.

So if you can't search the internet for a reliable and profitable wholesaler/dropshipper, where can you look? The truth is that there really is no easy answer. It's going to take hard work and due diligence to find the right wholesaler/dropshipper. That leads me to rule #2:

# 2 Do your research and demand to see prices and products prior to making any type of commitment.

Most middle men will never show you an entire list of their products and pricelist. Sure they'll show you a few products and some prices but ask to see their entire catalog with prices and they'll tell you to become a member and oh by the way pay your membership fees. A legitimate wholesaler/dropshipper will never charge you a membership fee just to give you the right to sell their products! That's the first sign that you are dealing with a middleman. Another sign is whether or not they ask you for a Tax ID. A legitimate wholesaler/dropshipper will only do business with another legitimate business. They don't want to sell their products to someone looking for a good deal. They want to sell to a legitimate business who will work hard at selling their products.

When you finally find a legit wholesaler/dropshipper, the real work really begins. Now it's time do some research.

Click on this link (it will take you to a eBay search page) http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/AdvSearch?sofindtype=1 type in a description for the product you are considering selling, check the "Completed Listing Only" box and finally click on the search button. The results you get will consist of all closed listings on eBay for the last 30 days which match your search criteria! This will give you a pretty good idea of how much your potential product is currently selling for on eBay. Once you find a product that is selling at an acceptable profit margin for you...well you know where to go from there.

So we're back to square one. Where can you find a good source for products? Well I can tell you how I found my sources.

When I first started selling on eBay, I was using a Dropshipper. As time passed, more and more of my competitors found my Dropshipping source. To remain competitive I would drive to my Dropshippers warehouse and stock the product. This way I could ship quickly (usually same day) and in some cases even pay less for shipping. Well eventually I had enough competitors and I kid you not it got to the point where my profit margin on each sale was something like $1-$2. Like I said, I'm not kidding. There are sellers on eBay that sell at margins that low! Apparently, if you live in a trailer park in the middle of no where you can make a living selling products at a margin of $1-$2 :-0

So there I was one day, driving my cargo van to pick up another order from my supplier and I noticed a couple of shops and made a mental note to "stop by" and check out their products. After a few months, I finally did and that began the next chapter of my eBay selling adventure.

One of the shop owners agreed to sell me the products at discounted prices as long as I spent a minimum amount with him. The other wasn't as nice...She practically threw me out of the store. So I sent my wife to buy something from said shop. I looked up the manufacturer at Thomas Register.com, called them and asked them for a list of their distributors which they were happy to give me. I called a few of their distributors until I found one that would sell to me and I've been selling their products ever since!

I left out a lot of the details of the actual process used to contact the manufacturer and their distributors because there is an excellent FREE eBook that outlines the entire process of finding and pre-qualifying legitimate wholesalers and dropshippers that you should really read if you're interested in going this route to obtain your products.
Click here , scroll down and you'll see the free eBook at the right of the page.

Good luck!

Differentiate your Business

2006-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

All Business

There's a great article on the All Business network today regarding marketing and differentiation by
Chuck McKay. Chuck ends the article by asking, "What makes your company different?"

This is perhaps the most important question most of us as entrepreneurs will ever have to answer because it will ultimately determine our success or failure. This is a question that must be addressed early and often when drafting your business plan or starting your venture. The underlying principal here is that the majority of markets are now saturated with competition (well maybe not saturated but you get the point) and you as a business owner must now find a way to stand out from the crowd (of competitors) and make yourself noticeable.

The Purple Cow By Seth Godin is an excellent book which really gets into how you can separate yourself from the crowd. Seth gives you pages of real world examples of what companies have done today to separate themselves from their competitors and how you can do the same. If you like to read, are looking for some marketing tips and are looking for a way to separate yourself from your competitors then this is a must read. Click on the image below to check out The Purple Cow at Amazon.

eBay Express

2006-05-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

The hot topic on many discussion threads across the eBay discussion forum is eBay Express and the train wreck it has become.

How bad has it gotten?

Many eBay sellers have actually begun to opt out of eBay Express because they believe that their sales will increase by doing so. Some of these sellers believe that the eBay Express search engine has somehow decreased, minimized or at least diminished the quality of exposure their stores have received. There are multiple theories expressed for this loss of sales. We'll keep a close eye on eBay Express which will officially launch at eBay Live this year. Vegas anyone?

eBay Rant

2006-05-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or has eBay lost some of it's luster?

Don't get me wrong eBay is still the largest e-commerce site in the world but it seems to be having trouble doing what it's supposed to be doing. What's that you ask? Growing.

eBay recently announced an agreement with Yahoo and speculation abounds as to whether the pact will yield a positive or negative outcome for eBay. Per the agreement (and I'm paraphrasing here), Yahoo! ads will now appear alongside ebay listings. The ads will only contain accessory type items and not similar items which would directly compete with eBay listings. eBay will benefit by now appearing on Yahoo! searches which rank behind only Google in total searches. eBay feels the increase in traffic will more then compensate for some of the traffic that maybe departing due the new Yahoo! ads that eBay shoppers will now find alongside eBay auction listings.

I'll tell you what I think as an eBay seller myself. I've been working diligently at the continued development of my own website. There was a time when you could earn a decent income on eBay but those days are gone. eBay is a business and it is in business to make profits. eBay sellers are paying more and more in seller fees and receiving less and less in exposure. Store items are no longer found in regular searches (more on that in another post) and now your auction listings will find indirect accesory item competition (allegedly) from Yahoo! ads.

Your marketing dollars are better spent on developing and marketing your own website these days. eBay has never been a good profit center for me and I doubt it ever has been for you. The fact is that eBay is saturated up to the niches in competition and has always reaped very low margins.

What it is.

eBay is a great place to liquidate merchandise that you're having trouble moving. It's a great tool to use to drive traffic to your off eBay site. And it's a great place to get started and get your feet wet.

Better bang for your buck in developing and marketing your own website. Guaranteed.

Plan your eBay auctions around the holidays

2006-05-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

It's Memorial Day weekend (a big thank you to all the troops fighting today and to all that have served this wonderful country in the past!) and I've learned a valuable lesson about eBay and holidays.

People don't shop on holidays!

Perhaps they're out enjoying their time away from the office and maybe we (entrepreneurs and eBay sellers) should be doing the same?

So the next time a big holiday rolls around, make sure to decrease the amount of listings you have closing on that particular day and for heavens sake take some time off and remember why you decided to work from home in the first place!

Free E Books for wookies

2006-05-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

WorldWide Brands

This is for all the "newbies" out there that are looking to get started on their internet businesses. More specifically this is for folks looking to sell on eBay or their own websites and are looking for products to sell. The free e books from Chris Malta have a lot of useful information for sourcing products as well as pitfalls to avoid. One of the best free e books out there. If you're a beginner, it's a must read! Follow the link below:

WorldWide Brands