Forum Moderators: buckworks
What I'm looking for is some pointers on:
- Where do the power sellers hang out? Here?
- What kinds of tools do you use to improve your sales?
- Who are the leading providers of add on tools and services?
- What do you wish you had tools or service wise, but don't now?
- Know anything we need to avoid doing?
TIA!
No experience with Amazon, so no comment.
yes, but which are good and which are not? that's what I'm after.
> It would be very difficult build functionality
> around your package that would rival programs
> that have been in development for almost as long.
Correct, but that is not our goal. We are not trying to knock off any leaders here, just trying to build in some sweet functionality.
> build a data bridge
We are not opposed to that as long as it is worth while.
I don't think Seller's Assistant Pro (SA Pro) is necessarily "good" but it is the official desktop product for eBay listings. So, building a data bridge to that would make the most sense.
> build in some sweet functionality.
You can either subscribe to the eBay API ($$$) or scrape the web pages (free). API is really easy compared to scraping pages. If you go the API route, you'd have to charge your customer a subscription fee or a percentage of sales to cover the API costs.
anyone else here know this space well? I'm still in need some info, and I figured that has to be some big time eBay people here, no?
Thanks!
[edited by: lorax at 1:09 am (utc) on Feb. 16, 2005]
[edit reason] removed URL [/edit]
You can request an invite. I'm not sure what they are looking for in general, but they probably aren't looking for "me too" vendors who sell the same merchandise as everyone else at the same price (but then, I'm not even sure about that.)
We manufacture our own line and its only available on the web direct from us and through Amazon. Through the magic of the ever-changing Google algorithms, our Amazon.com store page shows up at the top of the organic search lists. (Our homepage doesn't show up in the top 3 pages, involves 2 words that do not normally go together and could not be confused with any other company or site, is linked from numerous reputable sources, has had no SEO done on it at all, and was ranked in the number 1 slot for over a year. Go go Google!)
Since listing on Amazon.com, we've done between 10-15% of our gross sales through it. Amazon's cut is roughly equivalent to what we pay for our PPC campaigns, so its been a nice channel for us.
My understanding is that our results are very unusual for Amazon though - most small vendors report minimum sales, not even enough to cover the monthly fee for the program.
YMMV.
Tha't been my general experience with Amazon. We probably could a bit better, but I'd much rather devote my time to our web site development and not to promotion on a site where I'm limited to their formatting or rules. We use another site to augment our wholesale business.
These are great sites in that they will capture a share of business that you won't get from your own site. People who shop Amazon tend not to shop elsewhere, IMO. Same for eBay. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. To stay on topic, here's a tip. Plan to spend a lot of time working these sites if you want to be successful with them.
eBay PowerSellers hang out at the PowerSellers forum. You need to be one yourself or an authorized eBay employee to read/post on that forum.
> - What kinds of tools do you use to improve your sales?
Upsell tool to encourage buyers to use the web store. Email newsletters.
