10 things you should be monitoring on your website
By David Leonhardt
Every business needs to know how it is doing. That’s the idea behind exit surveys, customer feedback forms, suggestion boxes and other devices. Without feedback from the customer, monitoring inventory, expenses, revenue and other benchmarks, a business can take a quick slide down a slippery slope, without the owner ever seeing it coming ? or being able to stop the slide.
Webmasters also have things they should be monitoring on their websites. Most of these can be classified as traffic related or server performance related. Here is my top ten list.
Monitoring website traffic
Traffic totals. You want to know how much traffic you are generating. If the line on the graph is heading down, you know you have to find out why.
Referrers. It’s not enough just to know how many visitors you are getting. You need to know where they are coming from. I discovered I was getting a lot of visitors from a Thanksgiving site. They were all being funneled into my Thanksgiving Happiness article. Suddenly I knew I should get more links from other Thanksgiving sites. Valuable information.
Searches. Much to my surprise, my happiness site started getting a ridiculous number of hits from the search for “hairdressers”. It just so happens I wrote a humor column on a hairdresser experience. I was surprised to see it getting so much traffic for such a generic, competitive search term. If that had been a term of a little more relevance for me, this information would have lead me to properly optimize the page and get even more traffic.
Pages viewed per visit. If people visit only one page per visit, you have some work to convince them to visit more pages, like those that make you money.
Pages visited. So you threw up on your site something cool as an add-on. How were you to know that other webmasters would link to it and send a whole bunch of traffic your way? Well, now you know, so add some copy to the page to pull visitors into the rest of your site.
Monitoring website performance
Forms. Are they all functioning? A good website monitoring service can keep tabs on them for you. The last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning
Shopping carts. Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Make sure yours is functioning properly. A good website monitoring service can watch this for you, too.
Download speed. Clear your cache and test your pages. Hmm. Maybe those images are a bit large. Time to compress them, or even remove some. Remember that some people are on a much slower connection than you are. I use a satellite connection sometimes, but when I don’t, my connection speed is 28K.
Server speed. re there problems with server speed? Maybe not where you are, but on the other side of the world. Global website monitoring can alert you to a transatlantic connection problem, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.
Server accessibility. All the web hosts promise 99% accessibility. But is that for real? Who monitors them? By one estimate, 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet’s backbone network and in global routing. A global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting company to resolve it before too many sales are lost.
Fun. If you are not having fun, audition for that drummer position in the local band. There is no point spending your life doing something that bores you. Webmastering should be fun.
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The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with solo ads.
People endorse other products for a many reasons. Sometimes to sell affiliate products for commissions, promote a joint ventured product or other times, for an advertising space they sold. Solo ad is a single advertisement in an email published by the owner of an ezine/newsletter to his lists of subscribers.
Why does it work more effectively than the others? You can fully personalize your solo ad and it?ll be sent out in only one single email, which lets the readers focus only on the solo ad. This highly increases the response of the advertisement and gives you a high edge compared to other ads which are hardly noticed.
Here we?re going to mention what kind of solo ads sell and what factors are important. The process of publishing a solo ad:
1. Choose a newsletter or e-zine to send out your solo ad
2. Write a solo ad
3. Create an effective or catchy title
4. Put up the website where your visitors will go
1. Choosing the right newsletter or e-zine
This is an extremely important step. Whether or not your readers will be interested in your solo ad depends on what group they are. You must choose a huge targeted list of subscribers to send out your solo ad, usually one with more than 5,000 people.
If you want to find targeted e-zines/newsletters where you can advertise your solo ad, simply make a search on Google with your niche market?s keywords and go to the popular or high ranking websites. From there, find the links that say ?advertising? or “advertise with us”, and the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
How can you put a limit on learning more? The next section may contain that one little bit of wisdom that changes everything.
2. Writing a solo ad
Most people are tired of seeing advertisements over and over again, they can sense it right away on the first look followed by a click on the delete button. So how do you make a difference with your solo ads?
Write a story, that?s all! Humans are drawn into stories since they were born, we?ll read any stories which are interesting. Write about how you have started before you have this experience, and what happens after. It has been said that the best solo ad never sells a thing, it only pre-sells and warm up the readers.
3. Coming up with the perfect title
Ever been to a book store? If you are not attracted to the headline of a story book on its cover, will you even bother buying it next? Hardly, and that is why you need to keep your readers hooked.
4. Design the website where your visitors will go
It is common that people always send readers of their solo ads right to the main sales page, a big mistake, instead. You should always let these “personally invited” visitors feel that they are special, for having the front-edge against the other normal visitors.
Greet them cheerfully, and roughly tell them your success with the product you mentioned in the solo ad, and always take advantage of asking them to opt into your subscriber list! This is very crucial, every penny or effort you spent for the solo ad is to benefit as much as you can from it, but not the extent of people getting tired, of course.
Again, tell the stories, interesting stories. You will realize that people will want to buy from you so much just because they feel closer to you. Do this right, and you can have an overnight success with your solo ads.
If you’ve picked some pointers about solo ads that you can put into action, then by all means, take action and DO IT! That’s all for now, All the Best.
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Determining a profitable website is not easy especially if you are looking to flip it for higher profit within a short time frame. However, with the correct steps and procedures, it is possible even for a beginner to pick up a good site with great potential to start off.
The first step to determine if a website is worth the investment is by the number of income streams it has. Most websites have more than one income channel such as Pay-Per-Click advertisement (Google Adsense etc), Pay-Per-Action programs (AzoogleAds, ClickBank etc) or selling of own products. Basically, this step is to analyze the current profitable channels and see if you can expand or add in other sources of income. Never rely only on one income source for a website.
The second step is to find out where are the traffic coming from. Most websites should have a healthy amount of constant traffic from the search engines followed by social bookmarking sites or regular visitors. If the majority of the traffic is coming from the search engines, proceed to ask the owner what are the keywords that brought in the traffic. Try out the keywords in the search engines and check out the search engine rankings of the site.
You should also check with the owner what are the top search engines that direct the traffic to the site. With these information, check the on-page optimization effort of the site and you may have more ideas for improvements after you have bought it.
The next step is to highlight the areas of possible improvements of the site. If you can come out with at least two quick fixes to the site that can increase the value created to the visitors, the traffic to the site will increase to the next higher level eventually. For example, if you can include an online tool to calculate the financial networth of a person in a financial blog, that would most likely benefit all your readers in a long run.
The fourth step is to check for back links to the site that you are interested to purchase. It is highly recommended to use Yahoo backlink analyzer to check for backlinks since it displays almost all the pages that linked to the site. You may want to use the Yahoo powered analyzer at USESEO.com.
With the above four steps, you should have no problems choosing a profitable website that can generate a stable income for some time. You are advised to check on the seller’s history as well to know more about the seller’s background before confirming the transaction.
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One of the most serious problems with any blogging system, including WordPress, is that the comments area is wide open to that scourge of the Internet, spammers. In this case, it’s comment spam.
Comment spam is created by people seeking to boost their Google rankings by having lots of links pointing to their own websites. This causes a wide variety of problems:
? When Google detects content spam, they will often block the site it’s coming from because it messes up their ranking system.
? It takes up your valuable time and bandwidth to eliminate these posts.
? If the onslaught of spam is heavy enough, it may result in a denial-of-service attack, intended or not, which is a situation in which the server tries so hard to post bad information and/or deliver notification emails to you that it denies service to the legitimate requests. In at least one case, a blogger received over two thousand email notifications of comments that needed approval; as he dealt with these, he continued getting more, ultimately crashing his mail server.
As you can see, even if you have your comments set to post only upon approval, this can be a serious problem. One solution is the Akismet plugin for WordPress.
Akismet Plugin and Other Plugin Options for WordPress
Akismet is designed to help you filter out those nasty spammers, and it’s not hard to get it installed into your WordPress system. Download the plugin, and upload it to the blog directory on your server in the plugins subdirectory under wp-content. Activate from the WordPress plugins menu. If you have a notice that you need the Akismet API, go to the WordPress website and look or ask for one.
Here’s the magic: the only instruction in Akismet is “forget that spam was ever a problem.” You don’t have to do anything else at all ? the spam will simply be bounced. You will not receive a notification, nor will you have to go out and delete spam.
Another plugin for eliminating spam from bots is the “Did You Pass Math” plugin. This one makes the user perform a simple math problem before submitting a comment. As most humans can handle this and most spambots can’t, it’s pretty likely that a comment posted through this is a legitimate comment. You should add a note of caution that your comments will be deleted if you answer the math wrong, though; a wise commenter will use an offline composition tool, not post directly to the comments area.
If This Still Doesn’t Work
If you still can’t eliminate spammers with these plugins, you can eliminate them by denying them access to your comments area. This does not mean you have to disable your comments section, only that you need to set up a filter.
It’s not usually as simple as just blocking their IPs. Serious spammers use random IPs, while blocking IPs may get rid of them for a short time, it will ultimately prevent legitimate comments from being posted. Spammers are also notorious for hijacking other people’s IP addresses. But as a short-term emergency solution, you can try it. The IP address is included in the information packet for the comment; it’s similar to a traceable phone number. Look for clear patterns in your IP numbers.
Use the .htaccess file to block unwanted IPs from even seeing your blog. For instance, these lines can be added:
order allow,deny
deny from 123.123.123.123
deny from 456.456.456.*
deny from 789.789.*.*
allow from all
IPs are four-part numbers, such as 192.168.0.1. Typically, if you see a pattern with the first two sections being identical, you can block all IPs of that type by simply listing them as 192.168.*.*, as you see above. This screens out all these IP numbers. Blocked IPs will get a 403 error page; customize yours so that your contact details are listed in case you’re blocking out a legitimate user. Don’t use your regular email; a spammer can harvest that too, for a whole new set of problems. Instead, encode your email so that it’s not automatically readable.
When you think you have your problems addressed, you can remove the block from your .htaccess file. If it still doesn’t work, or if you don’t see an IP pattern, it’s likely that spambots are hijacking someone else’s machine to attack your site. In this case, do not use the IP block.
Again, if you don’t have an IP pattern of attack, this may not be worth doing. Remember, too, that with IP addresses, the first numbers affect the largest number of computers, like a reverse address: USA, California, Sacramento, X Building, Ste. 101, Joe Schmo. An IP follows roughly the same pattern, with the last of the four sections referring to the specific computer it is attached to.
Google’s Nofollow Attribute
Of course, if it’s a waste of their time to spam you, spammers may just skip you altogether. For this reason, you can use the Google Nofollow attribute for links: . This attribute is embedded automatically by modern versions of WordPress.
It does not eliminate links, which is what spammers are working on adding to your site. Instead, it makes those links irrelevant to Google. The end result is that it doesn’t hurt your rank in Google, and it doesn’t help a spammer to send data to your site. It also marks you, for spambots looking for an easy target, as a waste of time.
This is not an immediate fix. But it is a way to make your blog resistant to spammers in the future. If you’re already a target, you’ll have to work with it slowly, incorporating all these fixes. If you aren’t a target, the very least you should do is turn on the nofollow option in your WordPress system; this will deter any hungry spambots. Upgrade your version, or look for one of the plugins that provides this service for you.
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If you want to make money selling on ebay, you should look at finding yourself a wholesaler in the field you are selling in. A wholesaler is the ‘bridge’ between the manufacturer and the retailer. Quite often the manufacturer doesn’t want to deal with individual retailers because of they may only sell hundreds of their product, whereas the wholesaler can sell thousands. Because of this, they only mark up their prices probably around 15%.
Wholesalers have only recently found the power of the internet, with more and more are shifting from having just an online prescence to having a full e-commerce site. And that’s good news for the retailer.
Due to the nature of the wholesaler, they won’t deal with end consumers, and only deal with ‘traders’, but that doesn’t mean they won’t deal with you. Provided you are going to be buying in bulk, in general the wholesaler will sell to you. Being a trader simply means you’re not going to keep the products you buy. If you’re selling on ebay as a hobby that still means you’re a trader. You don’t need to set up a company, the same way you don’t need to when you sell at car boot sales.
So now you know what a wholesaler is, how do you go about finding one. Buy a wholesaler list from ebay, right? Wrong! Those lists may contain thousands of companies, but accurate are they? In my experience, not very. Out of interest I bought a list, and 90% of the wholesalers listed aren’t in the country you’re interested in. Very few had websites, and some just had mobile phone numbers as the contact, which were not in service. Don’t waste your money. They are out of date as soon as they are put on the cd, or in the PDF.
You have a couple of options. The simplest is to pick up the Yellow Pages (or visit Yell.com). You’ll be suprised how many there are on your doorstep. Just pay them a visit explaining that you’re starting to sell online. Some do require letterheads etc, but many don’t. All it takes is a visit to find out.
The other way is to visit a trader directory website. There are a few on the net, but most of them require you to pay to see the wholesalers listed. I think this is backwards. It’s like asking you to pay every month for the use of the Yellow Pages. The right way to do it is to have free access, but if any payment is required, it should be from the advertiser. There is another benefit to the advertiser/wholesaler too, and that’s their page ranking. Search engines look at how many other sites are linking to their site, and more specifically, sites that are related (by theme/topic etc) to each other. Having similar sites linking will improve the page ranking of those sites, which will make them appear higher in search engines. But I digress.
When you find a wholesaler, visit his site. If he’s in the UK, he needs to have a contact name, address and number on their site (as required by section 4 of the Business Names Act, 1985). If they are a registered company, their company number needs to be visible also. You can use this to check how long the company has been in business and their registered address. Give them a call and have a chat. If they’re legit then they’ll welcome the call and quite happily answer any questions.
Check the terms and conditions. Because they sell in bulk, there may be a minimum order quantity for individual items, or a minumum order value. This can be as little as ?50 or as much as ?1000.
You may need to register to see the wholesale prices. This shouldn’t pose a problem. Once you’ve got the prices, compare them to similar items on ebay to see what kinds of profit you can make. I’ve found prices for the same item can vary quite dramatically between wholesalers. This is because wholesalers get discounts from the manufacturer depending on the amount they can sell. The more they sell, the bigger the discount.
Build up a good relationship with them if possible. Some online wholesalers are very friendly and offer what feels like a personal service. If you are regular, they may provide an even higher level of service.
To discover the secrets of a real online dropshipper, visit this site: best selling items on ebay. best selling items on ebay about to reveal how you can have your very own ?unfair advantage? over the competition. Get the very exclusive guide from best selling items on ebay today!
Have you ever wondered why your perfectly fine classified ad fails to attract the attention you desire? There should be dozens?no, hundreds?of perspective buyers swamping your e-mail inbox with offers. After all, you are offering a mint baseball card, a vintage coat, pristine used car, those wholesale-priced sporting goods, and whatever other attractive items are in your inventory. Instead, you only have a slow trickle of questions, a handful of sales. What gives? More than likely, your sales are slow because you have not mastered the three techniques of writing a classic classified ad.
Of course, give yourself credit for recognizing one important facet of today?s selling world. You decided to sell your stuff at an online classified site. As anybody in the business knows, online classified ads get you more privacy, a broader selection of buyers, and a wealth of tools to help you keep tabs on your transactions. When compared to a newspaper, cyberspace is also a wee bit more spacious. There are billions of pages on the Web, and only a few dozen in your typical neighborhood rag. For you, that means a lot more space for your ad to say the least.
With that space, however, comes great responsibility?and great potential. The extra room gives you the freedom to include as much product description and sale copy as you want. You can?t just slap together a whole bunch of information, though. You need to use the three special ad writing techniques that will attract buyers and seal the deal: attention, interest, and action.
Attention. Make sure the buyer stops at your ad instead of the thousands upon thousands of others out there in cyberspace. Your ad?s title is the first lure to grab his or her attention, and the first component of a catchy title is the item?s best feature, whether it?s the price, the item?s rarity, or its popularity. Next, be sure the title includes keywords or other synonyms for your item that a buyer might use in a search. For instance, a buyer could search for ?automobile? instead of ?car,? ?pullover? instead of ?sweater.?
Interest. Once you have the buyer?s attention, hook them with details. There is a direct relationship between the amount of information you provide and the number of sales you?ll make. So describe the item as completely as possible?size, color, material, designer, model?and provide a clear, digital photo to finish the job where your words leave off. Even offer your prospective customer the item?s history if possible.
Also, try to list as many possible benefits that your sales item could offer the buyer. Come up with some that the buyer probably wouldn?t think of on his or her own. And zone in on specific benefits. Use what you already know about your target. For instance, if you were selling a car, you know that whoever is looking at your ad is in need of a vehicle. If your car is compact, perhaps the buyer is in search of great gas mileage. Or perhaps it?s power he or she wants if your car is a sports model.
Action. Finish your ad strongly. Don?t just suggest to the buyer that you offer a great deal. Tell them it?s a fantastic offer that they can?t pass up. Use phrases like ?Call me now before someone else does? or ?Buy now, this opportunity won?t last long.? Be cordial while you?re pressing the issue, of course. Thank them for reading your ad and make sure they know you appreciate their business.
Most importantly, your customers will also value your honesty throughout the whole ad. So whether it?s the attention, interest, or action you?re shooting for, never lie or exaggerate. Go so far to include any defects if your product is not in mint shape. Your honesty will build trust, and trust above all else makes an ad work. What?s more, it makes for repeat customers.
Remember, if you use all three of these elements?or four if you include honesty. When you?re finished with it, it should read something like the two examples below.
Example 1:
Discover the beauty of a Forest Hill Home
2500 sq. ft. home, 4 bedroom, 3 baths, double garage, upgraded kitchen, 12 ft. ceilings
This open concept house is situated in a historical landmark district of Rhode Island. It?s a wonderful neighborhood to raise your family, with nearby schools and amenities.
(Insert your image or photo here.)
Call for an on-site appointment. Thanks for looking!
Example 2:
Looking for an inexpensive used car that drives well? only $4,950.
2003 Honda Civic, Limited Edition, 65,000 miles, manual transmission, CD, AM/FM radio, power steering, low maintenance. Great on gas – this car will save you $$$ on high gasoline prices.
(Insert your image or photo here.)
Send me a message now. Thanks for looking!
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Why would a software company overlook one of the easiest and quickest ways to promote it’s products online? This would seem to be a rhetorical question except for the fact that I run a shareware site and am constantly on the search for new software to add to my site. The thing is that only half of the programs I want to add to my database have PAD files available.
A PAD file is a simple XML file that contains all the information a developer would normally type into a web form at a software site. XML knowledge is not needed to create a PAD file. You can get one free at http://www.padgen.org/.
The software is basically self-explanatory. Just fill in the forms. It only takes about a half and hour to create a pad file and upload it to your site. It takes even less time if you already have a website to promote your product. Then you can just copy and paste the info you already have. And once your pad file is done, submitting to shareware sites is as easy as copying and pasting the address of your PAD file.
But why isn’t PAD technology used more often? Of course, it could be ignorance. Now ignorance is not a bad word. It just means that you haven’t heard of this technology that can increase download of your products three times over, a technology that means you can submit to anywhere from 300 to 700 software sites on the internet within an hour, depending on whose figures you use.
Most sites that use pad files don’t even require a membership. Mine doesn’t. This means you could submit your software to one site in the time it takes to copy and paste the address of your pad file into one form, hit submit, and then choose a category. Then you’re off to the next site. Submit and forget.
If this still seems like too much work, you can download software programs that will do all the submission work for you. Just think, it could finish your software submissions to hundreds of sites in the time it takes you to eat lunch.
Or maybe software marketers just don’t know the true value of submitting software to software sites. People actually go to software sites to find software. That sounds like a stupid statement but not when you realize that most general directories, except maybe DMOZ or Yahoo, are rarely used as search tools. They have mainly become an SEO tool. When searchers are looking for something general, they go to Google, Yahoo, or MSN. But when they look for software, they generally end up at a shareware site and stay for a while.
Of maybe you don’t develop shareware. The software you develop must be purchased before it is used. No trial period, because of the risk of it getting cracked. That’s fine. I really understand this reason. I was a developer who had my software cracked three times before I gave up on the whole shareware thing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a demo, a stand alone program that acts as a teaser. It will only be a matter of time before the software user opts to by the full version. Just make sure your demo teases enough but not too much.
So submitting PAD files to software sites has the effect of killing two birds with one stone. Yes, you get a multitude of links back to your site, but those links have more value than just increasing your pagerank. People will actually be using them to get to your site. As software developers, we have a tool that makes the process a lot easier and quicker than other marketers. Not using it now that you know is laziness.
To discover the secrets of a real online dropshipper, visit this site: best selling items on ebay. best selling items on ebay about to reveal how you can have your very own ?unfair advantage? over the competition. Get the very exclusive guide from best selling items on ebay today!
My name is Kevin and I’m 24 years old. This is the true story of how during the summer of 2001, I made $40,000 selling dropshipped goods on ebay only to lose it all and end up with $4,000 of debt. Read my cautionary tale to prevent yourself from making the same mistakes that I made.
I first found out about dropshipping back in June of 2001 a little after I started a not-so-profitable business on eBay selling cell phone accessories and such. I saw dropshipping as an all profit method of business. You don’t pay for shipping. You don’t pay for inventory. You basically just advertise the product on auction websites such as eBay, take orders, collect the money, and pay the set amount for each item to the dropshipper keeping the remaining amounts for yourself as profits. I now realize that it is only that easy when you’re dealing with the right person.
I first started dropshipping with a guy named Chris. I was selling Nike Air Jordans on eBay. I saw that Jordans are real popular on eBay and people pay huge amounts for them. I’ve seen some pairs go for $1,000+. Chris only charged me $67 a pair. So, I basically just doubled the price and sold them on eBay for $134 a pair. I sold about 20 pairs of shoes within a week giving me a profit of $1,340. I suddenly became happy with the success I had because obtaining over $1,000 in a week at the age of 19 is pretty rare. So, I wanted to start putting up way more auctions so that I could make way more money. Unfortunately, this is when Chris became unreliable. He never returned any of my e-mails and never got back online. Plus, he only had shipped half of the 20 orders I had. So, I decided that I needed a replacement quick before I started to have some unhappy customers on my hands.
This now brought me to dropshipper #2. I talked to the guy about the situation and he said that he would be able to handle it. I paid him for the remaining 10 orders I had left and he shipped the shoes off to my customers. I respected the fact that he picked up right where my previous dropshipper had left off at and took care of business. So, I assumed that this guy was all about business and was a very reliable and legitimate dropshipper. So, I started to put up more buy it now auctions and these shoes were selling faster than I could put them up for auction. This is the unbelievable part. I had sold 250 pairs of shoes in a matter of 4 days. I collected over $40,000 in 4 days. That’s $10,000 a day! This came as an amazement to me especially since I was only 19 at the time. I’ve made some people’s yearly salaries in a matter of only 4 days. Little did I know though that I was in over my head. I got a little too greedy and started to splurge on money that wasn’t even mine yet; buying clothes, shoes, and even put a $1,000 down payment on a new car. My dropshipper shipped my first 30 orders only to find out that he had shipped off nothing but all wrong sizes and wrong colors. So, I had a lot of complaining customers. Some even went straight to PayPal to complain causing PayPal to limit access to my account. So, now I had over $40,000 sitting in my PayPal account that I had absolutely no access to and over 200 orders that need to be shipped off. So, my only option was to refund everyone their money back to get my PayPal account back to regular standing, which brought me to my next dilemma…
I spent almost $4,000 of the $40,000 I thought would be mine to keep. So now, my Paypal balance was negative $4,000 and I needed to come up with that $4,000 quick before PayPal took legal action to get that money. I thought the only way to get me out of this mess was by the same way that got me into this mess. This is what brought me to dropshipper #3.
I stumbled upon a guy named Jarell. I found him through a legitimate business website so I decided to sell enough pairs of Jordans to make up the $4,000 and then I’d call it quits because this was too much for someone so young. Everything went smooth and I was able to make the $4,000 using my girlfriend’s PayPal account. Unfortunately, PayPal then limited access to her account also finding out that she was linked to me. This then aggravated me because now I had 15 orders that I in no way could pay my supplier. If I had shipped to my customers it would bring more complaints and negative feedback which was very bad for business. That was then, this is now.
After reviewing my whole experience with dropshipping in hindsight, I realized all of the mistakes that I had made. For anyone who is looking into working with dropshippers, please pay close attention.
1. Before going into business with someone who is going to be dropshipping merchandise for you, be sure to get to know the person really well. Don’t go by instinct. Have a few converstations with the person before you start anything. Collect all methods of contact of the dropshipper for emergency contact.
2. I suggest that you do not start off having the dropshipper ship the merchandise to your customers. Order some of the merchandise for yourself and examine it thoroughly before you go into business. I started to recieve e-mails from angry customers stating that the Jordans were of terrible quality when I was told by my dropshipper that they were of authentic quality.
3. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. As stated previously, I sold 250 pairs of shoes in 4 days. Within those 4 days, I had to deal with about 600-700 e-mails which is almost impossible for only one person to deal with that also has school to worry about. Patience is the key to success.
These were a few of the mistakes that I made dealing with dropshipping. I had a price to pay for my mistakes. I owed $4,000 to PayPal and I had a $2,000 eBay bill that I ended up working during the summer to pay off. My purpose in writing this is for everyone considering going into business with a dropshipper to take precautions and use the tips I provided. I would also like to say that even though I had a bad experience dealing with dropshipping, that is not always the case. I know there are some people who have become successful and wealthy off of dropshipping.
Five years have passed since I began my journey in this industry. I finally did pay off all of my debts that summer and have made it my mission to educate and inform people of the scammers out there waiting to ambush the inexperienced and naive. I wrote this article because I don’t want anyone else to go through the experience that I did. There were times where I felt hopeless and bitter for falling into a trap that left me feeling depressed. Needless to say, I have learned from my soul-crushing mistakes and now make a decent living selling on ebay.
To discover the secrets of a real online dropshipper, visit this site: best selling items on ebay. best selling items on ebay about to reveal how you can have your very own ?unfair advantage? over the competition. Get the very exclusive guide from best selling items on ebay today!
Building a web site often can lead to interesting deviations caused by practicalities and changes in perspective. This is okay so long as you keep things simple for prospects.
Many business owners unintentionally erect barriers between themselves and their customers when it comes to the site sales process. Simple mechanisms can be put in place to remove these barriers. A business owner that is always looking for new ways to connect with potential customers often finds his or her efforts paying off many times over. Some of the most common web sales barriers are lack of contact methods, payment methods, and delivery methods. To bridge these potential barriers, a business owner can provide more options to crossing each of these barriers.
Contact Barriers
Simply adding contact options can be a great way to create more sales. Some web sites only offer email or even just a contact form as a means of contact. Yet there are many people that prefer to conduct transactions over the phone, by mail or by fax. Retail sites discover this fact the first time they go through a hot sales period such as Christmas. Some people just like to call. No, I don?t know why. They just do.
Providing a broad range of contact options also builds credibility. Having an office address, fax and phone number in addition to an email address shows the prospective client that the business does in fact exist and has made themselves transparent and easy to contact. Providing such information gives people the impression they aren?t dealing with some Nigerian scam.
Using an 800 number is also an excellent way to build credibility and remove a sales barrier. Picking up the tab on calls from potential clients is a polite gesture and may encourage a potential buyer one more reason to call. Toll-free numbers are easy to obtain these days and can cost around 6 cents per minute – a small price to pay for building confidence in your audience.
Payment Barriers
Many web sites provide only one way to pay for merchandise – credit card. There are many reasons to offer more payment methods. For one, not everyone has a credit card. Although in the United States, it seems like almost everyone does, this is not true in over-seas markets where there is resistance to credit. Furthermore, some people just don’t feel safe providing credit card information over the web. Regardless of how safe or unsafe Internet transactions may or may not be, it is usually the job of the business owner to provide what the consumer wants.
It is a simple matter to provide an address and a printable order form for most web sites where a check can be mailed. If you are running a home business, a PO box is a simple solution to keep your business separate from your home. Some mail box services allow for your address to be a suite number instead of a box number, which can further improve the image of your business.
Providing a phone number by which orders can be placed is also a way to remove a barrier between you and your potential customers. Of course this means there must also be someone there to answer the phone. Simply answering the phone can be the difference between a sale and a lost sale.
Delivery Methods
For businesses providing products, providing a variety of delivery methods is yet another way to cater to the desires of your customers and potential customers. Many people have a preference for delivery and meeting this preference could be a deciding factor when deciding whether or not to place an order. For those businesses providing services, providing a delivery pickup service for a deposit and/or contract can be a perfect sale closer.
Conclusion
By removing barriers between you and your potential customers you can increase the chances of making sales. Other options are also available, like instant messaging support, mapped out directions, video conferencing and more. Be careful to not confuse your audience with too many options. It is often a good idea to direct your audience to default options for contact, payment and delivery so as not to confuse people. Other options can be shown as small links or drop down options. By working to connect more with your audience, your sales and customer satisfaction can be increased dramatically.
To discover the secrets of a real online dropshipper, visit this site: best selling items on ebay. best selling items on ebay about to reveal how you can have your very own ?unfair advantage? over the competition. Get the very exclusive guide from best selling items on ebay today!
The internet has virtually changed the way we certain aspects of our lives. It has changed the way we view where we get the latest news, how to communicate with one another, how we play, how we shop and even how we trade and make money.
The internet has made these aspects of our lives more instantaneous and, with regards to shopping and trading, brought these activities to our door steps. It now allows us to shop and purchase items that we like by just looking at the items offered in different websites. Ditto for trading, where we now have the opportunity to sell and trade products and, thus earn money, from the comfort of our homes.
The potential for online trading is so great that there are now people who do this professionally. They have quit their regular jobs and instead work and support their families by buying and selling various products online.
One of the most lucrative and interesting aspect of online trading is the buying and selling of used or second-hand goods. Through the power of the internet, web based marketplaces have sprouted all over where visitors can browse around for various second hand goods and purchase them online. It is like a virtual flea market where you can browse through different items of interest that have been owned previously by other people. The significant difference between doing this in an actual flea market and selling it online is the number of people of potential customers that will see your items. Potentially, the people that will be able to see your items online can number in the high thousands, and that is just a conservative estimate. What?s more since you sell your items online, you won?t have to man any stalls or booths. If there is a person who wants to buy your items, then you just get notified by email. Isn?t that convenient?
People who would like to try selling their used goods online don?t even have to set up their own websites ? which can be quite difficult especially since you will need to install a payment gateway which can be quite hard and expensive to set up. They can always go join online communities that encourage the buying and selling of used goods. Communities like http://www.usedjunction.com make the task of selling used goods so much easier. These websites already have their infrastructure in place that can accommodate both the buying and selling functions of a virtual marketplace. Another benefit of joining these online communities is that you get to take advantage of the marketing muscle of the website. With minimal marketing efforts from you as a seller, you can be assured that prospective customers will still be able the items that you are selling. This is a tremendous benefit that should not be overlooked. Just make sure that you give a good description of your item, and more importantly good quality pictures of the items that you are selling so that you can be noticed by prospective buyers.
To discover the secrets of a real online dropshipper, visit this site: best selling items on ebay. best selling items on ebay about to reveal how you can have your very own ?unfair advantage? over the competition. Get the very exclusive guide from best selling items on ebay today!
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