Auction Autopilot Blog

Today, I would like to tell you about one of the best sources I have found for finding top quality, low priced products you can sell on your eBay auctions for tremendous profits.  Finding eBay hot items at low prices is one of the keys to creating a lucrative business on eBay.  You have several choices, when it comes to acquiring eBay products at rock bottom prices.

• Drop Shippers
• Wholesalers
• Liquidators

In order to acquire your eBay products with the least expense, you must cut out all the middlemen and work directly with the manufacturer or the manufacture’s distributor.  You will need to contact several wholesale sources, in order to identify the company that can supply you with your eBay hot items at the lowest prices.

Contacting product wholesalers will take some legwork.  However, finding the right source for a hot selling product is well worth the effort.  Once you’ve discovered a reliable source, it’s like owning a gold mine.  You can take as much gold out of the mine as you want, whenever you want.

I have scoured the Internet to identify the most reputable sources for wholesale products.  This is important because most so-called wholesale product sources are really middlemen disguised as wholesalers.  They buy from the real wholesalers, mark the products up and resell them to unsuspecting buyers.  Don’t cheat yourself out of more profit by dealing with these “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

It goes without saying that the cheaper you can buy your products, the more profit you can make.  The ideal situation is to acquire your products for 25¢ on the dollar and then mark them up 100%.  This is called keystoning.  If you follow this formula, you can still sell your products at a 50% discount below regular retail prices.  What kind of income do you think you could generate if you made a 100% profit every time you gave one of your customers a 50% discount?  Obviously, the sky is the limit!

If this seems like an unlikely possibility, think again.  Savvy Ebay Power Sellers do this all the time, and you can too… if you know where to find the best deals.  One of the best sources of wholesalers, liquidators and drop shippers on the Internet is a service called Worldwide Brands.  The wholesalers in this directory represent more than 500,000 products and 1,000 brand names, so you will have plenty of great product choices, for your eBay auctions.  I highly recommend them!

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Today, I’m going to tell you about a strategy that can double or triple your eBay income.  This technique is so easy.  However,  very few eBay sellers use it, even though it takes so little  effort.  What is it?

Backend Sales!

Let me give you an example of something I did.  I  noticed there were several eBay sellers who were selling huge  lots of greeting cards.  In fact, when I first checked it out, there was a lot  of 1,000 cards available, with only two days left in the auction.  Guess what the high bid was?

$1.00!?

Can you believe it?  The final bid went a bit higher, but  not by much.  In the end, the bidder ended up with 1,000 greeting cards for less than a  penny a piece.

There are several eBay sellers that regularly sell lots of 25  greeting cards for $5.00 or more.  What kind of a profit could  you make if you bought 1,000 cards for $1.00 and then turned  around and sold them all for $5.00 per set of 25 cards?  $200.00,  which is a 20,000% return on your money!  Not bad.

By the way, there are deals like this all the time on eBay.  You  can find a lot of them by using a great power tool called  HammerTap.

But, this post is not about finding low priced items on eBay  and reselling them for a profit.  That will be the subject of a  future post.  So now, back to backend sales (no pun intended). 

These huge lots of greeting cards come up on eBay all the time.  So, I decided to use them as a backend sale item.  Here’s what I  did.

I bought a large lot of cards for about $0.02 a piece.  I then  made up an order form to sell the cards for $0.20 a piece (you can always raise the price later).  Each time I shipped something that I  sold on eBay, I simply included a sample card & envelope with an order form.

When my buyer (winning bidder) received their purchase, they were surprised and pleased to find that I had enclosed a free greeting card that they could use (nice little bonus).  And, they saw that they could order more high-quality greeting cards, for only $0.20 a piece, in lots of 25.  Since most greeting cards  retail for $2.00 to $3.00 each, that represented a savings of more than  90%.  That’s a pretty attractive offer.

The beauty of this strategy is that anyone who ever buys anything  from me can become a life-time customer.  They may buy greeting  cards from me for years.  My first “one-time” sale to them can turn into a lifetime income stream, as they reorder cards again and again.

You can do the exact same thing.  All you need to do is identify  a consumable item that people buy, use up and buy again.  Buy it on Ebay for pennies on the dollar, or through one of the great  wholesale sources I will tell you about in a future post.  Set  up an order form you can enclose with your Ebay sales.  And, sit  back and let the money roll in.  Very cool!

HammerTap can save you hours looking for consumable items you can resell as backend products.  Remember, it doesn’t have to be  greeting cards.  That is just an example of something I happened to notice.  You may find other great consumable products that are a better fit for the type of items you normally sell on eBay.  HammerTap can make it easy to find products that people will buy over and over again.

To summarize, backend sales is basically the process of selling  more merchandise to customers who recently bought something from you.  The best time to approach a potential customer is when they  are already happy with a recent purchase and they are in the ”buying mood.”

Remember, the ideal backend product should be consumable.  Once  you capture a new customer, you want to offer him something that he will need to reorder from you each time he uses up his supply.  This will create lifetime customers that can be the source of a never ending income stream for you.

HammerTap can be a tremendous help in finding the hottest high-profit consumable items to use as backend sales products.  Take HammerTap for a free 10 day “test drive” and find out what it can do for you.

I ran across a post on Phil Dunn’s eBay Marketing Blog that got me thinking again about the importance of having reliable sources for products that will allow you to turn a nice profit on your eBay auctions.  It is not easy to find a steady supply of top notch products you can aquire at low cost, but sell for a decent profit.  Phil recommends a service called SaleHoo and I heartily endorse his recommendation.

SaleHoo allows you to get unlimited access to more than 5,000 wholesale product suppliers that are pre-screened, peer-reviewed and willing to work with home-based eBay sellers.  More than 50,000 people already use this amazing wholesale product supplier resource, so you know it has to be good.  And, I’m not just talking about eBay sellers.  Retail stores also use SaleHoo to find the best wholesale sources for products that sell like hot cakes.

Check out some of the amazing testimonials of regular people who are making consistent and sometimes very serous money, using SaleHoo.  These people come from all over the world, which goes to show again that it doesn’t matter where you live.  The internet is the great equalizer, when it comes to making money on eBay.  Check out the story of 17 year old Tom Ainge-Roy, from New Zealand, who consistently turns a profit of up to 400% on every item he sells.  And, there are many more, equally impressive.

When you check out the list of SaleHoo Suppliers, you will see that the database covers an amazing amount of products.  Wholesale suppliers include:

• Dropshippers
• Wholesalers
• Liquidators
• Manufacturers

SaleHoo also offers a number of excellent learning and training resources.  Their advice is easy to follow and jargon-free.  Some of the areas covered include:

• Finding & Sourcing
• Importing & Shipping
• Scam Prevention
• Business Setup
• eBay Selling
• Top Tools 

If you are unsure if SaleHoo is for you, I recommend you take the short video tour.  It will walk you through the main features and show you exactly how it can help you grow your eBay business.