It's been almost a week since my last post so I thought I'd better post. I've been very busy with tools for my journey. My goal this week was to get more products into my store on buyitsellit.com but in the process I learned so much. I've read about niche stores before and that it's good to have one, but I guess I didn't take it seriously. Now I'm sitting up and listening. I decided to start a new store with exclusively dog dishes on buyitsellit. It's called Dog Dish Store. I'm excited about it! I have about 23 listings on there right now. I'm working on getting many more. I'm getting a fare amount of viewings as well.

I visit the community boards on buy it sell it daily and I'm so jealous of these people ... in an admiring way though. It's almost comical to see so many people talk about how well there stores are doing or even how average their stores are doing when I've had a store on the site for a year with NO sales. To the site's credit I haven't done much to promote my items on there. It's not a huge site like Ebay so you have to bring people to your store. Google, word of mouth, ways like that.

I have also joined a Sight Engine Optimization free online class. It's to start within the next day and I'm so exciting. You join Yahoo groups to get the classes. There is a $20 book to follow along with the class, but you don't have to get it. People have been found to be more successful WITH it. I haven't bought it yet, but I think I will. It's an online book so you don't have to wait for shipping. You can get the book mailed to you as far as I understand. Click here for the SEO training class. Make sure you sign up for the class AND the Yahoo groups or you won't get into the class. ALSO you have to sign up for the Website Marketing Training Class at the same time as the SEO Training Class. What do you have to lose? ... It's FREE. :-) I can't wait to get the first lesson and put some of it to great use. Someone on buyitsellit that used the program just had a $300 day the other day. Can you believe it? That was enough for me to sign up!

In case you're wondering where I'm getting the dog dishes from, they are from the dropshipper that I belong to with my website DNAETC.com. They really give you so much to work with if you want to take it to another site to sell in addition to selling on your own site. Click on DropShipDirect to the left to check it out.

Getting late. Better get to bed. We go to see Santa in the morning. Then to a friend's Christmas Party. Then Santa again on Sunday. VERY full weekend!!!

Dropship Site

• Dropshipdesign.com is the site I use for my website dnaetc.com
  

1. One time fee and they host your website. No monthly fee. No transaction fees.
2. Dropshipdesign.com sets up the website in terms of providing photos for the merchandise and a guide for pricing. They set the price for your customer but you can change that if you think they set the price too high for your customers
3. If someone buys something directly through your website they deal with the transaction and the customer if they have problems.
   
4. If you sell through Ebay, you log into your website and purchase the item and indicate that you need the item sent directly to the customer and provide the address.
5. They accept Paypal and credit cards from you and your customers.
6. I bought my domain name from godaddy.com but you don't have to do that. They'll give you one that's something like dropshipdesign.yourcompany.com
   
7. One thing I don't like is that you have to pay a small monthly fee (I think $3 to get customer support via telephone) otherwise you can email them with questions. So far I've just used the email route. Like I've said I want to make no further investment.
8. You will have to make a concerted effort to advertise your site. You can't just set it up and hope for sales. I have only gotten sales at Ebay and I'm now trying different routes to promote my site. I won't lie... it's challenging.
   
9. There is a lot to think about when you commit to owning a website.
   

Let me know if you have any questions on this. I might be able to help.

• Another option is to use keywords Dropship Free on google.com search to find others. I'm going to post another great site as soon as I get my affiliate account set up so check back or subscribe to my blog to find out what that one is.
• I'll have to try and think of others I've used....

Dropshipping Turorial

I have noticed that a lot of people want to know more about dropshipping companies. I have experience with a few myself and have some tips. First lets go through what dropshipping is exactly:

• Company A is a large company that holds a lot of stock in various items.
• You research what items would be in demand. Check out past and current sales on Ebay if you want to sell on Ebay.
• Find something on Company A’s website that you think would sell for a profit on Ebay.
• List that item on Ebay. Don’t buy the item from Company A yet. When the item sells on Ebay, go to Company A’s website and have them ship the product directly to the customer. No investment except what you spend to post the ad on Ebay.
• Start small by listing a couple things and if they sell make sure they get to their destination and you receive positive feedback.
• To find your own dropshipper try a search of dropship free on google.com

Pros to Dropshipping:

• If you work with a good dropshipping site, they will send a replacement to the customer if they receive damaged goods or have proof the customer didn’t get the item. If the postal service says it was lost en route.
• No need to pre-buy the item you’re trying to sell

Cons to Dropshipping:

• You are at the mercy of the dropshipper: Going with Company A’s word (and receipt sent to you) that the item was shipped. It’s difficult to know for sure if the correct item was sent.
• On Ebay you have to disclose you don’t hold the item in your possession and some buyers may not be comfortable with that.
• Stiff Competition on Ebay for items you may want to dropship. You can find items to undercut them on, but profit is pretty small. You have to rely and selling a lot of something in order to make a great profit.

General Tips:

• Do not pay money to join a dropship site or for a company to sell you a list of dropship websites. Enough of them are free and you can find them if you look hard enough. I’ll even help you.
• Compare prices between dropshippers. Many of them hold the same merchandise so see who is the better company: price, delivery time, sophistication of the website, cost of delivery. For example: Site 1 is $19.99 for product + $6.99 shipping. Site 2 is $16.99 for product + $12.99. On the surface it seems like site 2 is the better buy, but you have to look at the shipping before you decide. Ultimately Site 1 is the better choice if you’re going by price. And competition is so tight over there I generally only based my decision on price. Shipping times honestly didn’t very enough in my opinion. Oh and some add a $1 processing charge that adds to what you’ll pay and should weigh on your decision to use them.
• Try to use a Dropship site that has a phone number.
• I don’t recall coming across any that were not in the United States but I would make sure the company is based in your home country.
• Ideally you want to find something on a dropshipper’s website that nobody is selling on Ebay and everyone is looking for.
• Make sure you do you research your competition before you post anything.

WARNING:

If you start posting stuff on Ebay (particularly new stuff) you might get a lot of emails from people that want to sell Lacoste shirts and other high end merchandise and they’ll drop ship them for you. Stay away!!! I was scammed by someone this way (her name is huajing zhu). Stay away! Only go through reputable websites.