Friday, May 20, 2011

Marketing Your Winnings for Best Profit Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Marketing Your Winnings for Best Profit

Your winnings will contain an assortment of large and small items. Size and weight become a relevant selling/profit issue in the disbursement of your saleable winnings. Properly marketing your items in the right profit arenas will ensure maximum profits for your efforts.

Selling Your Winnings On-Line…

Primarily for smaller shippable items -- however in some cases, a great way to feature larger items for local pickup or delivery.

Open your own on-line store and link to internet sellers such as www.craigslist.com, www.ebay.com, www.amazon.com or a host of other online marketing services. Understand that in some cases shipping/handling costs can actually be an extra profit base. Customers can pay you through PayPal, an on-line banking service preferred by Internet users.

CraigsList– free on-line service…

· Great for selling locally

· Ideal for selling larger items that are not cost effective to ship–Quality furniture

· Couches / entertainment systems

· Large antiques

· Dining room tables, chairs, side tables

· Pinball machines

· Slot machines

· Office furniture

· Sports equipment, lawn equipment, etc.

EBay and Yahoo Auction Services – nominal marketing fees / world market exposure…

Ideal for smaller, high value items:

· Jewelry

· China

· Coins

· Collectables (figurines, etc.)

· Wall Décor, historic documents

Anything people collect, use, can’t find, or want to get a better price than buying at a retail store.

To learn to use eBay, go to www.ebay.com and sign up for an account. It is a very easy steps process.

Listing items for sale on eBay or Yahoo

· Write a great description of your item for sale.

· Tell of the working condition and include any defects in your product Take good pictures of your product - have plenty of light when photographing - the more clear the image, the better

· The description will increase the probability of your item selling for more money.

Tips for successful internet sales…

Looks count. Take good clear pictures of your items and provide an honest description of the product and condition. You will be graded by your buyers providing consumer confidence in future sales; building your customers’ confidence and driving repeat sales.

Local Retail Merchants…

New retail businesses often like to cut costs by purchasing pre-owned office furniture, retail clothing racks, light fixtures and display cases.

Consignment Stores…

Typically will charge you a fee after the item sells.

Not our preferred method, but may be a good option if storage space is an issue.

Antique Dealers…

May purchase antiques from you but typically at a much lower price than selling on your own. If you want to keep your profits high, sell on Craig’s List.

Garage Sales…

Price your items. Place an ad for your garage sale in the local paper.

Have change for your customers and sell all that you can!

Snow Belt Sellers…

During the non-snow, spring through autumn months in northern climates, garage sales are a good way to move average quality or sub-average quality items such as kitchen appliances, furniture, sports equipment, bicycles, roller blades, lawn and garden equipment, etc.

You may want to consider renting a storage unit for the winter months to build up inventory for spring. This is a great time of year to buy units for next to nothing because most of your competition won’t have room to store the units and you will want the inventory to sell higher end smaller items on eBay throughout the winter and have a good inventory for spring.

Most self store companies will not let you have sales at the units, but I have taken customers to my storage unit to pick up items they wanted and this has not become a problem.

No comments:

Post a Comment