What it takes to sell online!

I've been selling online for years and also worked in many retail situations, From Furniture sales, Flooring Contractor both sales and Installation, Been a showroom manager. If I learned anything through out the many years selling is to look at what has worked in the past. Although I have strayed from some of my known staples. I realize that I need to return to many of them to be successful.

Here goes, Price points, I has always been well known that when a potential buyer see's any item ending in .99 they will only remember the dollar amount, So 19.99 will stick in there minds as $19 only. I've had many argue that this is not true, But it is true, It can be any combination .88-.77-.99 or even .01. So I will be fine tuning my items back to the .99 in my listings.

Now on to my next thought, Price to low or to high? Many newbie sellers believe that bargain pricing will generate sales, If that were true then there would not be so many Sellers championing lack of sales, It's not about Price 90% of the time, It is more about quality and quantity of goods available. Case in Point, I have listed many time in auction with low start prices and the auction went full circle and no bids, Re listed the item at a much higher start price and the item sold with bids. Most of the time sales are very dependent on the right item and the right price in the right place to the right buyer.

One of my pet peeves is when I hear things like "I charge only what it cost to ship" How dumb this is, Unless you can get a really good mark up on your items, You will be surprised at the end of your accounting year, How much money you lost by not adding a Handling Charge to off set Supplies and Time and Travel to ship your items. I never ever list shipping at exact cost. My prices are fair and shipping is part of that equation.

Another thing about S/H, I you follow the pros when it comes to  infomercials, They have it down pretty pat, They charge roughly $6.95 S/H on just about every item and they will give you added item for just a processing fee, Which most likely is another $6.95. One thing they have going for them is most $14.95 or $19.95 items cost only pennies to produce, So they make money no matter the items.

I love selling online, But it needs to be a more level playing field, meaning that I am all for checks and Balances, meaning that sellers who regularly sell for profit, Should be licensed to sell, Should be required to process sales tax and so forth. There are  ways to be a Hobby seller, But to qualify as a hobby seller you can not profit from the sale of your items.Normally as a hobby seller, You make a product and sell it for less that the actual time and material it takes to create the item, That's a hobby seller.

If you sell the stuff you have in your home, You don't have to report it as income since you normally won't charge more than you paid for these items, Once you begin add inventory now you become a seller for profit, unless you are dumb and buy high and sell low, That's what happens when begin to go  broke.

Hoping this slant on selling will be helpful, It is not my intent to bash anyone, Just to give my take on Professional selling.

I lost my Blog awhile back , New things happening, Old things passed away

So glad to have found my lost Blog, It really was not lost, I just could not located it.  Many things have happened in the last couple of months. Bonanzle last year changed the site name to Bonanza, From that point on things began to change not for the better, We did well up until January 23,2011, at which time Bonanza fail somehow to feed to Google, By the time I notice it my sales had stopped and a search of Google products show only a handful of my 2,600 items still in the shopping. Once it started back I had lost all interest in continuing, By coincidence I was looking at Model trains when I saw The Trainman items on a place called Addoway, I had seen it in passing but didn't give it much thought since there was a bunch of new sites popping up everywhere. I emailed him to ask how it was going and before I got an answer, I felt this was worth looking at, Once there I just knew I had arrived. The Trainman told me he had not sold anything at all. That didn't deter me at all. I set up a storefront and Imported 471 items out of 5 booths that was not doing anything at all. Once I saw how great this site was, I moved another 2,000 plus items over and closed Bonanza.

Bonanza was an awesome venue when it started, But as time went on there were way to many glitches, Most caused by a platform that was incorrectly set up(Just my opinion) and each time a change or improvement was added it caused further defects.I had been there as a cheerleader since 9/2008 and felt kind let down.

Now on to bigger things, Addoway is integrated with Facebook and that means all your Facebook friends will become a Huge part of your business plan as well. Addoway is young as far as Internet eCommerce, But aside from not having a shopping cart integrated into the site yet, It is laid out very well, Looks very professional, As other have said, The Support teams is awesome and very attentive, Right now the site is totally free, Plans later this year there will be FVF so we can grow. Pro members enjoy a host of Benefits not extended to free members, And the cost is only $8.95 a month or $75 a year.

I love the ability to interact with all the sellers here as well as many other ways through Live Chat, This site is spreading like wildfire across the net.

Stop by and take a look, If you decide to join please use my like, It just help me with my reputation.

www.addoway.com/ref/7eb29cb333192403eda033f2c334a4c5 

If you join now and upgrade to pro, You will not pay any fvf until Jan 2012 and your fees will be less that free members, Listings are free to all, and run or 30 days and can be set to re up automatically for ever or until they sell.

Thank you so much

Larry