As some of you know, I spent many years buying and selling both on and offline and several of my products are based upon my own experience in this area. I know that the vast majority of my customers and subscribers have an interest in trading whether it be on eBay or at the local market but more and more I am seeing people with completely unrealistic expectations of what they will be able to do. Most commonly these unrealistic expectations are in respect of how much it actually costs to purchase specific products and what they can then be sold on for.
I regularly get emails from people who want to know where they can purchase products such as mobile (cell) phones, new release DVDs, Playstation games and similar at, say, a 50% discount to resell on eBay. The fact is that such a thing is not available - it is a simple case of supply and demand and competition.Take DVDs for example, most people think that these are excellent products to resell on eBay because they are very popular, not particularly expensive and easy to package and ship. Unfortunately, they could not be more wrong.
The DVD market is one of the most competitive that there is - take a look for yourself and see how many auctions there are on eBay for DVDs at any one time. I have just looked and counted almost 300,000! At any one time there will only be a certain number of buyers wanting to purchase a particular DVD and if you take into account the numerous different places there are that each buyer could purchase from, it is likely that in general, there will be more copies of an individual DVD available than there are buyers to purchase them. This situation causes prices to fall.
The other factor that forces prices down is the fact that one DVD is the same as another. By this I mean that from a buyers point of view, there is no difference to a new DVD purchased on eBay to one which is purchased from their local DVD store. Often the only way to differentiate is on price and of course, the only way to make the price more attractive to a buyer is to lower it.The above reasons help to explain why the wholesale discount on a new release DVD is just £1 or £2 at most ($2 or $3 roughly in the US).
When you take into account the fact that the large retail chains can purchase thousands of DVDs at a time and receive a bigger discount than individual traders, you soon see why it is very difficult for a small business to compete in such a competitive industry. You simply cannot purchase new release DVDs at 50% discount and even if you could, it wouldn't be long before prices were forced down as there is always someone willing to sell a little bit cheaper than the next man.It isn't just DVDs that fall into this category. Take mobile (cell) phones. Here in the UK you can walk down just about any high street and get the latest phones either free or for a minimal token payment.
The stores are relying on making their money from the line rental contract that you will have to sign in order to get the phone. Of course, the actual cost of the phone is not free - most new mobiles are actually worth £200 or £300 which means that if you want to buy a batch of phones at wholesale, you are going to be looking at a pretty high unit cost. As with most electrical products, the market is competitive and prices have been forced down which means that the difference between your wholesale buying price and your retail selling price is minimal.
There are numerous products that suffer from the same market conditions as DVDs and phones and new/small traders really should avoid trying to sell such items at all costs because it will usually be frustrating and ultimately not financially rewarding. When trying to decide what products to sell, you need to be thinking about the type of market that a particular product is sold in. If there are already numerous sellers and many large companies selling at considerable discounts this is far from ideal. The exception to the rule is if you are able to add value in some way to make your 'offering' more unique.
The end of the day, it is all about research, being realistic and having an understanding of the market that you want to operate in. Whilst it would be great to be able to buy and sell new release DVDs (or whatever) all day long, doubling your money every time, I am afraid that this is just not going to happen.
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Thursday, December 4, 2008
Google to Compete with PayPal?
PayPal is secure in its domination over the electronic payment industry, at least for now. Following reports that Google planned to launch a new Internet payment service (nicknamed Google Wallet), Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, denied that Google would be directly competing with PayPal. He did, however, acknowledge that Google has plans for some type of electronic payment service. Without revealing any details, Schmidt emphasized that the Google payment service will not offer the same sort of “person to person, store-valued payments system” as PayPal provides.
The Internet commerce industry was rampant with rumours of the new Google service following an e-commerce conference hosted by securities firm Piper Jaffray. Speculation that Google Wallet would encroach on PayPal territory was reinforced by the appearance of a June 20th article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that Google was planning an online payment service to compete with PayPal.
PayPal is a unit of eBay and generates almost 25% of total eBay revenue. It is used by consumers for making a wide variety of Internet purchases. It allows purchasers to use their credit cards without divulging their credit card numbers to merchants. PayPal takes a percentage of each transaction and had revenues of $233.1 million in the first quarter of this year.
Most of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising and this expansion into online payments was seen by many in the industry as yet another example of the rivalry between the two companies. Google is a giant in Internet commerce with revenues of $3.2 billion last year. A payment service that competed directly with PayPal would be a serious blow to both PayPal and eBay.
Google maintained silence about the rumours until Schmidt’s comments last Tuesday. Without elaborating, he stated that Google’s payment service would be an extension of its existing advertising programs.
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The Internet commerce industry was rampant with rumours of the new Google service following an e-commerce conference hosted by securities firm Piper Jaffray. Speculation that Google Wallet would encroach on PayPal territory was reinforced by the appearance of a June 20th article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that Google was planning an online payment service to compete with PayPal.
PayPal is a unit of eBay and generates almost 25% of total eBay revenue. It is used by consumers for making a wide variety of Internet purchases. It allows purchasers to use their credit cards without divulging their credit card numbers to merchants. PayPal takes a percentage of each transaction and had revenues of $233.1 million in the first quarter of this year.
Most of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising and this expansion into online payments was seen by many in the industry as yet another example of the rivalry between the two companies. Google is a giant in Internet commerce with revenues of $3.2 billion last year. A payment service that competed directly with PayPal would be a serious blow to both PayPal and eBay.
Google maintained silence about the rumours until Schmidt’s comments last Tuesday. Without elaborating, he stated that Google’s payment service would be an extension of its existing advertising programs.
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Monday, December 1, 2008
Where To Use Your Keyword Phrases – a Checklist
Keyword stuffing – overuse of keywords - creates copy that turns people off and may even bring a penalty from the search engines. So how can keyword phrases be incorporated seamlessly into website copy so that it pleases both your visitors and the search engines?
In his article, Nick Usborne gives some very good advice – be aware of your keyword phrases and then forget about them. Let your subconscious take over and concentrate on writing for the people that visit your site. But of course the subconscious can always do with a little help and you
should educate yourself on where you can place keyword phrases to good effect.
Here is a checklist that covers three areas:
• Where you must use keyword phrases
• Where you can use additional keyword phrases without artificial stuffing
• How you can get external sites to link to you using keyword-rich linking text.
It’s also important to remember that a web page can’t be optimized effectively for multiple keyword phrases. If you try to optimize for too many, you’re efforts will be diluted and you’ll end up not ranking well for any. It’s much better to focus your optimization efforts on just a primary
and a secondary keyword phrase for each web page.
(i) Where you must use keyword phrases
These are the standard features of an optimized web page:
• The title tag. The title is particularly important and should include your primary keyword phrase and if possible your secondary phrase.
• The description tag. If your description contains the search term people enter, and it is the first text that Googlebot comes across, then you’ve a good chance that Google will display your description in the results.
• Headings and subheadings. The tags that are used throughout an article should contain keywords. So a heading of “Our new product range” is poor; “Our new range of
vegetarian dog food” is better.
• Body copy. The writer should understand what the keyword phrases are and use them in natural language on the page.
• Links on the page. The words used in live links tell the search engine what “this page” is about and also what the “linked-to page” is about.
• Alt text. For every image, write an alt attribute tag, good for both accessibility and optimization.
(ii) Additional ideas
Here are some ideas for working additional keywords into your copy but use these ideas sparingly.
• Bulleted lists within the body copy. Another opportunity ton repeat keyword phrases so that they don’t interfere with the reader’s enjoyment of the article
• Quotations and interviews. Quotations or pull quotes are short meaningful quotes from key individuals and you can have about 1 to 3 in a standard article of 1,000 words. Interviews, where you report both the question and the answer, give you an opportunity to easily repeat keyword phrases.
• References at the bottom of the article. A resource box at the bottom of an article is a good way to mention all the links and resources mentioned in the body copy.
• Add a takeaway box. Usually a summary that says, “The main points in this article are ...”
• Link title. Using the link title attribute in writing a link also gives an opportunity to repeat keyword phrases.
• Testimonials from satisfied customers. These are mostly used in sales pages but can also be incorporated into article templates.
• Signature box at the end of the article. This presents the opportunity for the author to present his or her company and what he/she does for clients.
(iii) External linking text
While you can’t always control external linking text, there are instances where you can. These include:
• Listing on subsidiary and partner sites. Often the easiest way to get keyword-rich external linking text.
• Directory listings. You usually have editorial input and can specify the exact linking text that points to your site.
• Press releases. You can certainly write the linking text at the bottom of your press releases, and on occasions within the body itself.
• In by-lines to articles that you publish. Many sites will allow you to specify not only the linking text but the text that surrounds the link.
• Reciprocal links. When you swap links you can ask for specific linking text to be used.
• Paid-for links. Links that you buy will always allow you to specify linking text and perhaps allow extra descriptive text. Writing, by its very nature, is creative and thrives when the imagination takes over. Don’t stifle your writing by adhering to a rigid keyword formula. Educate yourself in keyword strategies, immerse yourself in your subject, and above all enjoy yourself as you write.
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In his article, Nick Usborne gives some very good advice – be aware of your keyword phrases and then forget about them. Let your subconscious take over and concentrate on writing for the people that visit your site. But of course the subconscious can always do with a little help and you
should educate yourself on where you can place keyword phrases to good effect.
Here is a checklist that covers three areas:
• Where you must use keyword phrases
• Where you can use additional keyword phrases without artificial stuffing
• How you can get external sites to link to you using keyword-rich linking text.
It’s also important to remember that a web page can’t be optimized effectively for multiple keyword phrases. If you try to optimize for too many, you’re efforts will be diluted and you’ll end up not ranking well for any. It’s much better to focus your optimization efforts on just a primary
and a secondary keyword phrase for each web page.
(i) Where you must use keyword phrases
These are the standard features of an optimized web page:
• The title tag. The title is particularly important and should include your primary keyword phrase and if possible your secondary phrase.
• The description tag. If your description contains the search term people enter, and it is the first text that Googlebot comes across, then you’ve a good chance that Google will display your description in the results.
• Headings and subheadings. The
vegetarian dog food” is better.
• Body copy. The writer should understand what the keyword phrases are and use them in natural language on the page.
• Links on the page. The words used in live links tell the search engine what “this page” is about and also what the “linked-to page” is about.
• Alt text. For every image, write an alt attribute tag, good for both accessibility and optimization.
(ii) Additional ideas
Here are some ideas for working additional keywords into your copy but use these ideas sparingly.
• Bulleted lists within the body copy. Another opportunity ton repeat keyword phrases so that they don’t interfere with the reader’s enjoyment of the article
• Quotations and interviews. Quotations or pull quotes are short meaningful quotes from key individuals and you can have about 1 to 3 in a standard article of 1,000 words. Interviews, where you report both the question and the answer, give you an opportunity to easily repeat keyword phrases.
• References at the bottom of the article. A resource box at the bottom of an article is a good way to mention all the links and resources mentioned in the body copy.
• Add a takeaway box. Usually a summary that says, “The main points in this article are ...”
• Link title. Using the link title attribute in writing a link also gives an opportunity to repeat keyword phrases.
• Testimonials from satisfied customers. These are mostly used in sales pages but can also be incorporated into article templates.
• Signature box at the end of the article. This presents the opportunity for the author to present his or her company and what he/she does for clients.
(iii) External linking text
While you can’t always control external linking text, there are instances where you can. These include:
• Listing on subsidiary and partner sites. Often the easiest way to get keyword-rich external linking text.
• Directory listings. You usually have editorial input and can specify the exact linking text that points to your site.
• Press releases. You can certainly write the linking text at the bottom of your press releases, and on occasions within the body itself.
• In by-lines to articles that you publish. Many sites will allow you to specify not only the linking text but the text that surrounds the link.
• Reciprocal links. When you swap links you can ask for specific linking text to be used.
• Paid-for links. Links that you buy will always allow you to specify linking text and perhaps allow extra descriptive text. Writing, by its very nature, is creative and thrives when the imagination takes over. Don’t stifle your writing by adhering to a rigid keyword formula. Educate yourself in keyword strategies, immerse yourself in your subject, and above all enjoy yourself as you write.
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http://imtadsensetips.t35.com
http://articlesfree.t35.com/
http://imtiaztips.t35.com/
http://zifreelancer.t35.com/
http://webdesigntips.t35.com/
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