How can I compete with other eBay retailers in selling merchandise?
Retailers are selling merchandise for the price that I am acquiring it for. I spent thousands of dollars for a list of wholesalers and I still cannot compete.
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Mar 30, 2014
Don't think of yourself as selling a product. Add value and sell that. If you have a varied source of products, that you can assemble into something new, or bundle together - that can add value. Or buying inexpensive used items that need cleaning or refurbishing - sell those. Simply buying from another middleman (wholesaler) is not going to allow you to remain competitive or profitable.
A couple other pointers that gave me more profitability:
Reducing packaging and shipping costs be leveraging low cost packaging and shipping can double your profit margins on low cost items.
Reduce your inbound product cost by buying in volume directly from a manufacturer of the material, without packaging, and take advantage of creating a lower cost supply chain by shipping items made somewhere else from within your country.
Jan 16, 2014
Well, the ebay is open community and anyone can sell it for any price that they find it suitable for them.
Now, if yo uwant to sell the same item, then you might want to submit it differently than your competitor.
You could club them with another unique product that will compliment the purchase of first product from you.
Also, you will project tha tsame product differently. Submit it as one doller auction. See how many people bid it for. Then you could have your reserve for that product, if you meet reserve amount for that product the nyou should not allow anyone to bid it for. Saying reserves are nto mate.
Try this.....
Jan 16, 2014
Here's a suggestion - don't rely on eBay anymore. eBay is not the be all, end all as it used to be -- it has high fees and higher competition from other dropshippers and wholesalers.
Look into iOffer -- it's similar to eBay but has lower fees. Also, try free sources like CraigsList. There might be other websites for your local county or town that have "for sale" sections where you might be able to promote yourself.
I would *highly* recommend starting your own eCommerce site. Doing so will open up more possibilities for you, since you won't be price-compared against other competitors on the same site, as you would on eBay. Once you have your own website, work toward making it rank locally, within your county or ZIP. That's one of the few spaces that small businesses have a good chance of ranking at in Google at this point in time.
Jan 15, 2014
You need your merchandise to stand out in the "crowd", be different/exclusive ...only then you can sell at a higher price. You can have a mix of exclusive high priced merchandise with higher profit margins and the regular merchandise with lower margins. You may also need to bargain for bulk discounts from your wholesalers.
Jan 15, 2014
Many ebayers are the manufacturers themselves. They spend X # of dollars on one factory run of the merchandise for a customer, make an additional Y million units and dump them on the market.
There are really only two ways to compete in my eyes. On quality or on customer service.
The secret in your case is to "bundle". Offer other items that are pretty much throwaway items that offer additional perceived value.
If you can't compete on an apples to apples basis, compete on apples to oranges. That's the way consulting firms compete and they all seem to do well.
Just my .02 Good Luck.
For example, if you sell diapers, bundle in a free ebook on baby safety and a couple of baby guards. You get the idea.
Jan 15, 2014
Competing in Ebay is difficult, I wouldn't go for that alternative, vendors have bunches of suppliers that offer bargain selling prices based on quantities and credit programs.
Jan 14, 2014
Go beat up your vendors for a better price (figuratively of course). They understand you have to be competitively priced in order to win deals and they should be willing to help you. If not you'll probably need to find new vendors.
Jan 12, 2014
Maybe start business networking in your city at events. Not many people do what you do in those venues. Just meeting someone once face-to-face greatly increases the chance they'll do business with you. They won't care if you are slightly more than your competitors because they know you. Then I'd start incentive programs for them to refer friends, family and co-workers to you.
Jan 12, 2014
It's a tough one with eBay.
It's price first and then reputation and you can't get past that. The key is if you can get a Source of supply that is very cheap for what ever reason but is the real deal. eBay has a captive audience and once people start buying from you and like what they get, they get hooked depending on what you r selling. You need to build a reputation and once you cross over that hurdle of 1k comments at 100% in the green, then you have the momentum on your side. Hope this helps.
Jan 11, 2014
Hi, competition on ebay is only matter of 2 parameters:
- reputation
- price
You may want to search on ebay for the merchandise u want to sell and analyse the top 10-20 results. You'll find that the in average each "star" of reputation has its own reference prices.
If you start from scratch you must refer to the "no star" reputation price level.
The target is to growth quickly in reputation value.
The trick could be to invite your friends to buy from you on ebay or/and to launch special offer for a limited number of items or limited number of days. Of course you will have to contact your customers to let them feel secure and happy (e.g. a confirmation of the received order, at the shipment, asking for everithing ok at receiving,). That will feel them confortable to assigne you 5 stars.
Hope this can help you in starting your new activity in ebay.
Take care
Jan 14, 2014
Michel, great comments and I think your point about creating volume by discounting to your peer network can't be underestimated. The largest selling points on eBay and Amazon is customer ratings and volume of activity. You can't put yourself under by under-pricing and you have to ensure you can re-escalate your pricing back to profitability, but consumers love trends.
One dollar auctions are a great idea if you have a low cost item, an item you are selling on consignment, or you know for a fact that the item is popular enough to getting bidding to a level that exceeds your cost. Using a reserve price on ebay increases the listing costs and "turns off" buyers. Items with a reserve get the same amount of traffic, but 80% less bidding activity than the same item without a reserve.