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The first subject that will be covered here will be the very concepts of selling online through an online retailer. Amazon Marketplace and Half.com are the easiest models to start with because they do not utilize anything other than listing mechanisms where the user picks a product, writes a brief description of the item's physical condition and picks a price. Online stores have come a long way over the past decade, and have come to include just about everything under the Sun. It is relatively easy to sell on Amazon Marketplace (a service available to registered users at Amazon.com) and Half.com (now owned by eBay). These are prominent outlets that make your products highly visible to buyers on the web. In this case, the registered seller lists an item for sale, it sells to an independent buyer, the hosting website takes a small portion (usually, a percentage), and the seller gets the rest. This can be very lucrative if you know what you are doing. The key is research, research, research. The user must begin by picking a product to sell. Do you have something that you are trying to "get rid of," or do you have a product in mind that you are an expert on, thus able to make a profit? Are you an expert or collector of books, toys, movies or something else of interest? When that is established, you need to register with the website's selling service (either Amazon Marketplace or Half.com). That requires going to either Amazon or Half.com, clicking on the "sell your stuff" tab, and beginning the registration process. You'll be asked for all the standard information, like your name, address, phone, e-mail address, etc. You'll also need to give them a valid credit card number (standard for any online store) and checking account number (don't worry - the checking account is for them to deposit your earnings). When all of your information is entered, you may be required to confirm your e-mail address. You simply need to click on a validation link sent to you in your registration confirmation e-mail. Next, you will need to list your product. When you click on the "sell your stuff" tab (and your account is up and running), you will need to log into your account. Hopefully, you kept your login information handy. After you log in, you can either search for a product by name to sell, or enter its UPC number into the required field. The UPC is the barcode on the back of your product (in this case, I will be using movies and DVDs as examples because it is the easiest product to find, list and sell). When you enter the name of your movie or UPC code into the search box, you will be brought to a page where there is a list of movies available. You will probably get all of the versions available of the movie in the search results (VHS, DVD, previous releases, collector's editions, sequels bearing a similar name, etc.). Click on the correct version, and you will be brought to a page that contains the item description (date released, studio, movie length, etc.). The page may also contain information about all of the available items sold by other sellers, listed in price order and in various conditions. Your goal is to describe your item as accurately as possible, and sell it for the appropriate price. Ideally, you would like to have the lowest price for the highest quality item (for example, "Brand New"). When you click the button (depends on what website you are using to sell your item - the button may be in a different position on the page) that reads "Sell Yours Here," you will be brought to the page where you need to list important information about your item. You need to pick from a list (usually a drop-down list) the condition of your item (new, good, fair, etc.), and write a description of your item (I will cover description writing techniques later on). Make sure that you write an accurate description, or you may be greeted with nasty e-mails from a disgruntled buyer. You will then be prompted to pick your price. This depends heavily on a few things, such as condition of the item, the availability of the item and what the item's price range is amongst other online sellers. For a quick sell, you may want to pick the lowest price. However, you may have an item that is extremely rare and can demand a higher selling price, thus leading to a steeper profit. This is where you need to make a decision - you either want more money, or a quick sell. This will all depend on research, which will be covered next time the chapter titled "Supply and Demand." |