So How To Find Top Selling Products To Sell?

Hi Michael,

Here's a real secret tactic that I have used, quietly on ebay that may help you in Analyzing the 2 players in the auction market. I just wanted to comment also on 2 statement that you made

"Though I feel the Auction guy is limiting himself by only selling one at a time."

The "Auction Guy" may just be selling more items per auction than the Buy it now guy but "invisibily. More later.

"I've been watching these two sellers for the past week and a half. The Buy It Now Seller sold 4 units at his last listing while the Auction Seller sold 1 unit. The Buy It Now Seller offers Lower Shipping as his edge."

The Auction guy may be selling MORE THAN 4 units per auction listing. But on the surface just looking at Ebay's closed items, you would never know.

Here's how he may be doing it.

Ebay has a feature called "2nd Chance Offer" (At least when I used this technique a little while ago they did). This feature allows you to make an offer to ALL of the people that bid on your auction but did not WIN.

What I would do is send the Offer to ALL bids that were still profitable to me.

When you make a sale with these 2nd Chance Offers, I noticed that these profitable sales DID NOT Show up in my closed items on ebay.

YEAH!!

Thus I was able to make MULTIPLE PROFITABLE SALES, but my Competition or any "Prying Eyes" would think that I only made ONE sale :->

There was a boxing movie where the underdog beat the big bad guy with the same strategy. I am forgetting the name of the movie, but he beat the badguy and said.

"Makem' Think You are Weak when you are Strong"

While My Competition may have been playing the game and using the # of units sold as their key Metric and focus.

I was PLAYING THE GAME DIFFERENTLY.

I was focusing on maximizing my Total Profit Per Listing

Actually in hindsight, that was NOT my only focus.

I was actually measuring down to the Avg Profit Per Visitor to my auctions as well as some other metrics.

But I digress.

So in your example Michael, the Auction Guy "May" Be doing better than what you can "See" just on Ebay.

The lower shipping price of his competition may only appear to be an edge. We would have to look at the 2 metrics I described above to know for sure.

Something to keep in mind when you are "Eyeballing" the competition for profitability on Ebay :->

Action Step: (Thanks Ankesh)

- Place a bid on the Auction Guy and strive to be the 2nd or 3rd bidder
- Did he send you a Second Chance Offer at end of auction close?
- How many others did he send an Offer to?

Duane Adolph

Originally Posted by MichaelRoss

Jason,

Thanks for the idea.

Would you mind Expanding on How you'd use this Gained Knowledge of Huge Demand? Or are you thinking along the lines of what MW suggested - a website based around just one product, with a Competitive Advantage of bonus items, bigger purchase options options, faster delivery, etc.

Your mention of Outsourcing reminds me of something Dick Smith said - which I mentioned a few weeks ago... find the best from around the world and copy them.

Harv T Eker also said, find what's working over there and bring it over here. It will get here anyway, due to creep, but by brining it over you beat the Lag Time.

But the trick is, Finding what is Selling.

Books are tied up with publishers. Although, Bulk Lots can be purchased from the Licensed Distributors. Such as one of the Large distributors down in Oz has one simple request... at least $200 worth of books must be bought (that's $200 worth at wholesale prices). But you will be competing with all other book sellers that people already feel comfortable doing business with.

Re Copying... After searching ebay, clicking Related Items and following that kind of see/click/see/click line, I stumbled upon something interesting...

Two Power Sellers in Australia selling the Same product. Only two of them. One sells with Buy It Now, the other sells via Auction. Without naming them outright and using like-wise names, one is called Vidshanty and the other is Discshanty.

The interesting thing is, the Auctions almost always reach the same Buy It Now price and go no higher (sometimes being only a few cents under). Which tells me, those who Bid also know of the Buy It Now seller. Both sellers, of this one particular item (and they both sell a range of items), make a sale during the Listing Life. Though I feel the Auction guy is limiting himself by only selling one at a time.

Further research reveals one of them is an Actual Store. They do shop front sales as well as a Large Mailorder Operation in addition to their Ebay side. And they keep their ebay side Separate from their store/mailorder side - you cannot call them and get the cheaper ebay prices, for example.

I don't know much about the other seller, yet.

What I found most interesting was the Product Sold and how one seller had obviously copied the Name of the other seller. The second half of the name was such a quirky word its use had to be deliberate.

I've been watching these two sellers for the past week and a half. The Buy It Now Seller sold 4 units at his last listing while the Auction Seller sold 1 unit. The Buy It Now Seller offers Lower Shipping as his edge.

The Auction Seller also offers a Two Unit deal. Again, the price of his Auctions stops just short - or right on the price - of buying two units from the Buy It Now Seller.

And they both use Auctiva http://www.auctiva.com Free Auction Software.

Michael Ross