Business Links eBay Trading Workshop At The Jury’s Inn Sheffield 25/03/2010

Hello everybody sorry about the delay in getting your post on been so busy but at least we are here now.

Thank you so much for turning up and we hope you enjoyed the eBay trading workshop but more importantly make sure you use what you have learnt.

Excellent venue with super fast internet the enviroment was relaxed and everyone was very attentive good quality questions were asked once again meaning you are all on the right track.

Selling on eBay can be very profitable for you and your business but nothing happens until you start and as an ancient old saying goes “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” get started make it happen it’s about hard work trial and error until you get there that’s all it is good luck and may the force be with you all.

As I said you can  quickly build a small income of £250-£300 per week  if you work hard and smart within 3-5 months.

One idea that’s good on eBay is old furniture painted in different colours you can quite easily pick up pieces of furniture at your local bootsales rub them down couple of coats of cream or white paint scratch off the edges here and there coat of varnish or two and bingo.

I picked up two gothic mirrors this week in our local paper for £60.00 I will be giving them a couple of coats of nickle spray paint and sell them on eBay  for £120-140 each.

Another good site to buy stuff from is gumtree also owned by eBay and its a local search site www.gumtree.com type in your local area for excellent finds.

I am spoiling you now letting you in on a few secrets I don’t mind but use them if I can earn an excellent full-time income selling on eBay so can you.

Until we meet again stay safe and trade safe.

John

How To Turn your Business Around in Bad Times

Take a look at our interview at the BBC

Its bad out there yes but its not the end of the world. I know that from my own experience because people are still buying products from me not as much but they are none the less.

I’m a realist. Like everyone else, and of course I am concerned about the state of our economy. And like most of you I tend to blame it on those who irresponsibly pushed world financial markets to the state they are in now But I have learnt to balance those feelings with a practical optimistic outlook. I know that, with the right strategies, my businesses can come out of this even stronger and so can yours

Is My Business Doomed to failure in these hard times? “ Not necessarily and as long as I am making good sound business decisions like cutting back making even better choices then my chances of survival are more than good.
In the past year,

My online retail business has dropped off around 6% in the past four months, a choice I made was to add lower priced items and bring in new types of client and keep existing clients with this tactic too as people are cutting back,

Of course my products will still be in demand to everyone who needs hair care I will move down a tag from expensive items to second best for now so I slow down on the dear and supply the not so dear its worked for me and it will for you plus I gain new clients and have a bigger variety of products when the economy picks up.

Some companies are even reporting growth: My theory is that purchase decisions, even during rough economic times, come down to buyers searching for value.

So what’s the best way for me to Sustain or maybe Even Grow My Business in This Economic Climate?

Whether your business is your primary livelihood or a means of supplementary income, you want to not only survive this economic stretch, but to emerge stronger.

Expect tough times to last at least one to two years
Save and Avoid Over-Leveraging: Savings can be cash or merchandise inventory.

Be wary of over-leveraging yourself; too much debt could wipe you out if sales revenues slip too far.

If you have some inventory built up, then you can spend less over the next six months working off your existing stock. Overall sales may be lower, but so will your expenses, netting a better cash flow.

Keep hold of cash and keep Inventory at Minimum: Make smaller and more frequent orders from your vendors. I now offer discounted postage on 3 or more items this allows me to keep more cash on hand and hold my inventory to a minimum level.

Keep Marketing and keep trying see What Works Best: We know many will go out of business in the coming year. Survivors will be those that adapted to a new economic climate.

So it is imperative that you be creative and adapt to change – try new stuff its exiting! – And keep refining your marketing to develop new business. Unless you have 100% market share in your region or sector, there’s always new business to grab, including from competitors.

My final advice is to keep trying new marketing strategies. Even if only one or two of your efforts is successful, you will be in good shape to weather the financial downturn

Business Link Yorkshire Making eBay Work For Your Business Workshop At The Royal York Hotel In York

The royal york hotel was an excellent venue and provided us with what was an amazing piece of high-tech kit in the form of a pretty largish wi-fi unit which was very fast and fault free indeed I am now looking for a similar product myself maybe I can get one on eBay.

Just like to thank you all for turning up and thanks for your kind words and excellent feedback about the workshop.

I have decided to stop using my website and instead put all the training links here on our Blog these will include a multitude of learning videos and other resources to help you along and all for free.

Also please comment and post your queries and questions here so that you can all share valuable learning information together .

I will be posting links to all sorts of tools with plenty off tips and tricks to help make your eBay business pleasant and profitable.

I am encouraged by all the questions regarding your eBay workshop and encouraged by your willingness to ask as asking is the basic hallmark of all successful entrepreneurs.

If you remember I did say that hard work trail and error would be the key to your success and you will make mistakes but DONT BE PUT OFF in the words of Thomas Eddison ” I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward”

Don’t forget if you need my help you only need ask Success to you all.

John

Business Link Yorkshire Making eBay Work For Your Business Event Great Victoria Hotel Bradford

Another excellent event excellent turnout excellent delegates and excellent venue the Great Victoria Hotel in Bradford was a good venue for Business Link Yorkshire Making eBay Work For Your Business Event.

There was a good mix of business owners ranging from book sellers, furniture,Fashion,Garden supplies to name a few and as I explained using eBay to help promote and sell your items will certainly help generate new customers for your business.

A recent survey has shown that pictures sell the item more than words so make certain that you take and edit pictures for your eBay listings as we demonstrated in our workshop some of the things to remember are:

• Use plain backdrops light for dark objects and dark for light objects
• Do not use flash use natural or artificial lighting not pointing directly at the item but enough to brighten up
• If you are taking close-ups activate macros on your camera this will ensure you picture is not blurred.
• Use a tripod
• And on editing you should 1 Rotate so the picture is upright 2 Crop take out the back ground 3 resize down to 1024 x 768 pixels 4 save as.
• Make a fuss of your pictures and they will reward you with sales.

Just also want to add that the level of questions fired at me on the subject of eBay selling were of the highest standards once again and very relevent to the workshop.

IO hope you all enjoyed it thanks for coming join in the blog and I am here to help.