Super Newbie trying to back up ebay sales

[83camaro]

Hello, My name is Rob. I sell items on ebay that I find locally. I've tried to sell drop shipped items, but the prices are not competitive enough for ebay. I am pretty good at website design and I have been kicking around the idea of starting on online store. I want to draw some of my ebay customers to my website where I can sell items. I am not to thrilled about what I have seen from "affilliate" programs. Not happy about earning just 5%. I want to sell merchandise and have my own checkout through paypal. I do not have a tax id. I'm just lost. I'm ready to start building a website. (i think nothing of sitting at the computer for 10+ hours a day)I have an IT degree so the technical aspect of the page is no problem, checkout and billing is no problem. I'm just wondering where to get products just to start out and test. Believe me, I'm thrilled about a sale!! It's not even the money.. I just love the idea that i'm providing someone with something they need. And they made the choice to buy from me. I'll tell you, I like the idea of selling kitchen appliances ( small) blenders, oven mits, cutlery sets, etc. And any of the stuff that Does not sell on ebay will be in a specail "bargain" bin.

I'm just not cutting it with ebay alone. My wife has set a goal .... She would like $500.00 profit a month... I told her I could do it. And i'm going to.

Please any help or any thoughts would be great. I'm also worried. If I sell products from a couple of vendors. I will have to be checking around constantly making sure that all of my inventory is in stock and ready to ship. Sounds like a lot of running around... especially if there are a lot of vendors.

Thank you, Sorry about the spelling, it's 3:30 here in buffalo.... and it's getting cold..

Rob.

... any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

[Lynn Terry]

Hi Rob & Welcome

You mentioned selling through various vendors - where do you plan to get the products for your website? If you plan to get them locally and list them on your site, then that seems like a lot of work (similar to listing on eBay, but also having to remove the products one sold) - or it does to me.

Here's a link to a drop shipper you may want to check out: http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/wholesale.htm (they are eBay Certified).

As for affiliate programs, I generally go for the programs that payout at least 10%. NetShops is a good one to consider, because they carry some really cool (in demand) products. Here's just an example: http://bakersracks.webservicenetwork.com/ (this is a page I created in a matter of minutes through their site - so there's no editing, no template, etc. They carry a lot more than just bakers racks - hammocks, cedar chests, patio furniture, you name it.

You can read more about that here:

The thing about affiliate programs is that there is very little work involved, compared to purchasing products and carrying an inventory - and then also shipping things out and offering customer service. With affiliate marketing, you dont have any of that. So lower profit... not really a big deal - you have a lot less time (and money!) invested. Which you can spend working the site to make more sales

Here's one of my "affiliate sites" as an example: http://www.corkitup.com/ . All of the products came from NetShop, and so there is no "work" involved with the site outside of marketing it. When the site makes a sale, I earn 10%. My last sale was $229.71, so I earned $22.97 - just as an example.

It just may make a good compliment to your ebay listings... you could still scout products and list them on ebay, and then use that exposure on eBay's high traffic site to drive traffic to your website (which could include a combination of affiliate products & your own products)...

Just some thoughts to consider.

[83camaro]

[Lynn Terry]

You could do that, yes, but heavily interlinking your sites (especially if they are all hosted on the same server) could raise a red flag with Google and cause you to get penalized or even banned from the search engines.

Spammers do that - create a network of related sites and then interlink them heavily to create their own source for backlinks.

Anyway, outside of that issue I think it is a good concept. What you might do is keep them all under the same general domain - such as kitchendeals.com then have kitchendeals.com/bakers-racks/ for example.

[83camaro]

Well I've spent about 6 hours making up a website. Just the template. Still a little shaky. This is the first website of this kind I have made. I do not have any affilliates yet, so that is why there are no links and no navigation in the Iframe box. But I thin it's alright for a first time online store. Now I guess I should register my domain name and get hosting.

Then comes the tricky part. How will I be able to apply for an affiliate program if my site has no links and is non- functional?? Will they accept me ... I know google wont.

Thank you soo very much, Oh.. am I still on the "right track"...

Rob..

Forgot the link:

[Lynn Terry]

[83camaro]

[Lynn Terry]

Your questions are fine, Rob -I'm glad to help any way I can

Yes - that is the best way to go about it, to make your pages search engine friendly. As long as you use the same template on every page, visitors wont have to "reload" the page - only load the content. The images & template will load faster after their initial visit to your site as the images etc are cached.

By the way, there's a lot of "step by step" in the of the weekly SSWT Newsletter. Here's a good place to start to help you with this part of the process: . Let me know if that raises any questions!

[83camaro]

[Lynn Terry]

You can use something called SSI (Server Side Includes). In fact, if you use the feature here at the forum, you should find some good resources. Or just do a search on Google.

In your second paragraph above, it sounded like you were saying you need direct links to specific products on the merchants site - is that correct? I would email the merchant and ask them if they offer this. If not, let us know - I think there are a couple of software programs out there that will work to create direct links to internal pages through your affiliate link.

[83camaro]

Wow. Ya know. I'm soo excited. I never knew about SSI. It works like a charm. And I thought it was the end of the world I'm using frontpage so I just used the "include" feature. I will problebly use yahoo as my hosting site. I think that their lower rate hosting will do me fine (yeah like I know?) I will be getting my domain name registered and hosted next week. Then I can get serious about linking.

I'm learning so much about web developement from this whole thing. I just hope I will be able to pull in a couple bucks a month. I'm still sceptical. And so is my wife. She doesn't see how this could make any real money...


Rob.

[Lynn Terry]

[83camaro]

Wow... Excellent audio...It brought up a good point. It's kinda where i'm stuck right now. Main page is almost set. Just a little tweaking. My site went from just linking to products to being a "kitchen portal". I'm going to include message boards, Recipies, Recipie submission, Kitchen tips etc.

Now the problem is.... I still have these categories on the side for "flatware" "cookware" etc. Should I just set it up like you said in the audio... when they click on flatware... it will bring them to a page that says "Great deals on Flatware at our top picked sites"... and then list maybe 4 or 5 vendors.... or should I still try to set it up like its my store....... ex.. click on flatware and then be brought to a list of products... then customer can click product and be brought to affiliates checkout... I'm kinda stuck in the middle. I don't want people to click on flatware.. and then be turned off when there are just a couple of links to affiliate sites. But then again.... I'm not sure how people react to this kind of thing. I know I don't like clicking on specifics and getting general results....... I'm almost there...........

Rob...

[Lynn Terry]

You could go one of several routes with that. You could link directly to the merchants flatware section. You could change your link to "how to choose flatware" and make it informational (leading into flatware options they can select from)... or you could list products or vendors.

One thing to keep in mind is this: the less clicks it takes to get from point A to "checkout"... the better (provided they get all the information they need along the way to make the purchase). Remember the commercial "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" from the 70's? 3 is the magic number - for clicks too

[83camaro]