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Titanium eBay: A Tactical Guide to Becoming a Millionaire Power Seller
Skip McGrath
Alpha/Penguin Books Group, 2009
557 pages, $24.95 |
Ostensibly, the goal of this book is to guide the seller past the eBay power seller levels of Bronze (at least $1,000 a month in sales,) Silver ($3,000,) Gold ($10,000,) even Platinum ($25,000) on to the rarefied air of Titanium — sellers who actually average at least $150,000 a month in sales. While the vast majority of eBay sellers do not gross $150,000 a year on the site, much less in a month, this book is for people who dream or aspire to that plateau. Or is it?
McGrath, a power seller of unstated level and clearly part of the eBay establishment (having written six books about eBay, been a speaker at its events and on eBay Radio), is surprisingly candid about the current pitfalls on the site. “The days of easy money ended on eBay by 2002,” he says in the book. At that point everyone from large corporations to experienced small- and medium-sized business owners were stampeding onto eBay, the sophisticated competition forcing down profit margins. To this he adds the obvious: “eBay fees were much lower a few years ago.”
McGrath concludes, “You can’t run a really large eBay business selling exclusively on eBay. Today, the most successful sellers use eBay as a gateway or an advertising platform for their other selling platforms both on and off eBay” Meaning on Amazon, Overstock.com, eBay Stores or the seller’s own Web-based site or store.
Despite this sobering if not heretical opinion, McGrath presents us here with a 557-page, 60-chapter, magnum opus covering in great detail every aspect of selling on eBay — which, despite the books title, is suitable for mega and mom-and-pop sellers alike.
In the first section, McGrath assures us that major power-seller status is impossible without automation. Fast forward to chapters 41 through 46, which cover all aspects of automation from listing, photographing, responding to questions (do not automate responses) feedback and shipping. Plus this scheduling cue: Like many sellers, McGrath ends his sales on the weekend, but eBay charges 10 cents each to schedule auctions whereas all auction-hosting services do this for free, “the savings are often enough to pay for the services.”
The book is sprinkled with sidebar-like power seller tips. In one he points out the importance of monitoring the number of “watchers” who are following a sale. When he finds three or more watchers on an item he figures it will do well. If the number grows to five or more he immediately launches an identical item if he has one, but with a high starting price and BIN (Buy It Now) price: “Someone almost always snatches it up at the BIN price,” he writes.
In the 90-page, eight-chapter section “Product Selection and Pricing,” the advice is similar to that found in other eBay how-to books — just much more of it. For instance, there is a 10-page chapter on “Niche Marketing Strategies” and 11 pages on “The Drop Shipping Business Model” (probably both world records for an eBay book.)
In the same section McGrath offers a group of “nevers” and “do-nots” regarding product selection for eBay:
- There are four levels of wholesale distribution —manufacturer, importer, distributor and middleman, the closer you get to the manufacturer the less your product will cost. Never buy from the lowest rung — the middleman, as it is virtually impossible to make money.
- Never buy a fad or short-lived product unless you’re buying from the manufacturer or importer and the product is very early in its life cycle.
- Do not buy new or pre-introduction products unless you are positive they will sell based on the past performance of similar products.
- Never buy a product during the selling phase (SP) or early liquidation phase (LP) of a product’s life cycle as you will be selling into the “eBay Dead Zone.”
- Never buy a product if the quantity you are buying represents more than 10 percent of the available quantity in your marketplace.
- Never buy a liquidation-phase product unless it has a recognizable brand name.
The critical “Product Acquisition” section runs 82 pages, covering the types of wholesale distributors — manufacturers reps, liquidators, surplus and closeout dealers, importers and importer-exporters. Regardless of ilk, all wholesalers maintain minimum order limits, and if you can not meet the limit most will point you toward the highway and wish you luck. Here is how McGrath has successfully circumvented a $5,000 minimum order:
“Steve, $5,000 is a small order for you but a big order for us; if your product sells well $5,000 is not a problem for us, but as a small company we need to make sure our customers like your product before committing to it, would you sell us a minimum of $500 for a market test so we can be sure it sells before we go ahead?”
He points out this approach respectfully recognizes the rules but asks for an exception and gives the wholesaler a reason for accepting —he’ll be back.
Part IV’s “Advanced Listing & Selling strategies” includes a chapter on controlling eBay fees entitled, “Is eBay Eating Your Lunch?” It’s an unlikely topic in a book written by an eBay guru. Within the section, McGrath suggests:
- When selling popular items that always sell well, common sense dictates starting them at 99 cents incurring the lowest listing fee and simultaneously attracting bidders, just as listing at $9.99, 24.99, $49.99 avoids the higher fee lurking at just a penny more, not to mention the psychological advantage.
- Do not fall in love with items or auctions. Shift failed auction items to the lower fees of the Fixed Price format where anything can be listed at any price for up to 30 days for as little as 15 cents a category. At least at that price you can afford to run it for months until it sells — and, speaking from experience, it probably will.
- A free auction-fee calculator is available at www.ebcalc.com a useful tool in tracking and projecting eBay fees.
In the last sections of the book, McGrath covers the following in great detail: pay-per-click links on and off eBay, using promotions, photography, the wisdom of free shipping, the art of the up-sell, driving bidders from eBay to your Web site, managing your business for growth, “coping with adversity” and a great deal more, all interspersed with his personal experiences — positive and negative — in a good, readable style.
Given all of the available books, CDs DVDs and classroom tutorials on how to succeed on eBay we’re not sure that this wall needs another brick. Further, at this point becoming a Titanium level seller on eBay is a highly unlikely if not implausible goal for all but a very small number of us.
Nevertheless, McGrath gives the sense that he’s on the reader’s side rather than spouting the usual eBay party-line. Further, the sheer range, quantity and quality of McGrath’s advice makes this book suitable for eBay sellers on nearly every level. In fact, this effort delivers more value than any other single eBay how-to book or tool we’ve seen.
Frank Fortunato is a seasoned online book seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.
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